Guest Editorial: Thanks to our Health Exchange “Navigators”

— by Alison Shaw —

I would like to thank some of the unsung heroes here on Orcas Island that you may not know about.

The new Washington Health Benefit Exchange, which opened for business on Oct. 1, 2013, has allowed many of our island neighbors to obtain affordable health insurance. Some have enrolled in qualified (private) health plans and others in Washington Apple Health (expanded Medicaid).

As you can imagine, understanding the available plans and selecting an appropriate one can be challenging. At the end of last summer, six people undertook the training and certification needed to help people enroll through the Exchange when it opened: Erin O’Dell and Kalie McGinnis at Orcas Family Connections, the state-designated family resource center for Orcas Island; Aaimee Johnson and Dixie Morrison at Orcas Family Health Center; and Pegi Groundwater and Michael Moss, who have been serving as volunteers at the Orcas Medical Center.

While all of these people have worked hard to help uninsured Orcas residents obtain health coverage, I can personally vouch for the work of Pegi and Michael. They have been tireless in their efforts to help individuals and families enroll in the Exchange and have donated hundreds of hours of their time. In addition to meeting and enrolling people at the Orcas Medical Center, they have held sessions at the library. They have met multiple times with some folks who had complex applications. And they never gave up, even when the Exchange website crashed—which it often did. By the end of January, they had helped 78 household members enroll in qualified health plans and 101 enroll in Apple Health.

I wish I were at liberty to tell some of the personal stories of Orcas residents who recently enrolled in the Exchange. Suffice it to say that the vast majority of those who were helped with the process were grateful—and very relieved to know that the threat of medical bills would no longer be an impediment to getting care.

Our community owes a huge thank you to ALL of the Exchange navigators. Through their extraordinary efforts (and those of navigators on other islands), San Juan County outstripped all other counties in exceeding the enrollment goals set by the Washington Health Benefit Exchange.

Open enrollment for 2014 will continue through March 31, so if you feel you might be eligible for either of these programs, or know people who might, there is still time to enroll. To do that, you can contact
• Orcas Family Connections, 376-3184;
• Orcas Family Health Center, 376-7778; or
• Orcas Medical Center, 376-2561.

Alison Shaw is Clinic Manager of Orcas Medical Center