Orcas Family Connections Resource Center Signs On to Help with Affordable Care Registration

Lopez and San Juan Family Resource Centers also sign up to help

By Margie Doyle

The Orcas Family Connections Resource Center announced on Thursday, Sept 5 that it will sign a contract with Whatcom Association for Health Advancement (WAHA) in Skagit County, which is contracted by the state to help enroll people in the state exchange for federally-mandated Affordable Health Care.

A group of Orcas Island health and social service professionals have been meeting for the past month to coordinate how they may assist the local community in signing up with the Washington Health Benefits Exchange, also known as the Marketplace. Sage MacLeod, Early Childhood Educations and Assistance Program (ECEAP) Director, heads the group’s efforts.

In a conference call held on Wednesday, Sept. 4, MacLeod and others clarified the contracts WAHA is issuing to local Family Resource Centers (FRCs) to assist people with registering for the Washington Health Benefits exchange. Along with MacLeod,  Celia Marquis and Patty Bean of the Lopez Family Resource Center, Erin O’Dell of the Orcas Family Connections Resource Center, Barbara LaBrash, County Human Services Director, and Dorothy Bradshaw of the Whatcom Association for Health Advancement (WAHA), participated in the call.

Whatcom Association for Health Advancement (WAHA) has approached San Juan County, and the Family Resource Centers on each island, to contract for signing up at least 94 people on Orcas Island.

Among other requirements, the contract calls for monthly reporting, and training for In-Person Assisters. On Orcas, the contract with WAHA calls for training for four In-Person Assisters (IPA); two from the Orcas Family Connections Resource Center and two from the Island Medical Center. These four will undergo training in September. In addition, two staff from the Orcas Family Health Center will train as Certified Application Counselors (CAC) enrollment assisters. MacLeod says, “This will give us six trained assisters to start the enrollment process in October.” More in-person assister (IPA) training is likely in November, according to MacLeod.

In-Person Assisters/Navigators will undergo 20 hours of training over two days. The IPA/Navigators:

• must work for a lead organization or a network partner, with a contractural/sub-contractural relationship with Health Benefits Exchange (HBE). The assister/navigators’ payment is tied to meeting the enrollment target (94 by October 1, 2013 for Orcas Island);
• must focus on providing in -person assistance to “at-risk, hard-to-reach vulnerable populations”
• take full HBE in-Person Assister training required by contract and pass a certification exam to receive access to Healthplanfinder
• have ongoing, full access to individuals’ Healthplanfinder account

Partner organizations and Certified Application Counselors (CAC) will also provide assistance. They will primarily enroll Medicaid (low-income) health plan and may also do some Qualified Health Plan (QHP) enrollment

In last week’s conference call, it was agreed that the county’s Family Resource Center contracts with WAHA will contain a Memo of Understanding (MOU) which states that:

1.       Enrollments completed by in-kind San Juan In-Person Assisters (IPA)  Partner organizations (hospital and clinics including Orcas Medical Center, Orcas Family Health Center & Lopez Health Center) will be counted as enrollments of the San Juan County-contracted IPA Partners,

2.      In the event the Orcas Family Connections (or Lopez FRC) is unable, even with the assistance of other San Juan County partners, to reach its WAHA target (285 on Orcas), WAHA will not withhold incentive funds provided that at least the State-mandated (94 Orcas) minimum targets are achieved,

3.       WAHA will pay all or part of the operations portion of the contract to Orcas Family Connections (or Lopez FRC) to cover expended training costs per invoice to WAHA.  These costs may not exceed the amount of the operations funding as stipulated in the contract.

Given this MOU, Orcas Family Connections (OFC) and Lopez Family Resource Center will sign the WAHA contract, MacLeod said on Wednesday.

“We are definitely moving forward,” MacLeod said. “The big three islands will have multiple IPA and CAC partners and WAHA is talking about coming to the islands with their own IPAs to work at Information Fairs this fall.”

Registration for the Washington Health Exchange, beginning Oct. 1, 2013, is mandated by state law in order to comply with the Affordable Care Act (ACA) signed into national law in 2010. The state health care exchange policies are effective Jan. 1, 2014. People have until March 31, 2014 to register for the insurance-for-all program; after that date, they will incur penalties. Individuals may register themselves, or see if they are exempt, by going to https://www.wahbexchange.org