As we move through the current Open Enrollment period, many Ohioans are seeking out assistance to help them understand the enrollment process and get covered.  In the first month of the current open enrollment period, 89,000 Ohioans signed up for coverage through the Marketplace.

UHCAN Ohio Certified Application Counselors (CACs), who are located in churches and community-based organizations across the state, are seeing another aspect of Open Enrollment as well.  In addition to new enrollees, our CAC sites are also seeing an increase in the numbers of people with existing coverage who are now coming back with questions on re-enrollment and how to use their coverage.  Marsha Riley, one of our Columbus-based CACs, states that about 40-50% of those she sees are people she helped last year.

“This is very encouraging, because it shows that our system of using trusted messengers located at community based sites to provide enrollment assistance and follow-up is working,” says Nita Carter, UHCAN Ohio’s Director of outreach and enrollment.  

The goal of our project that builds enrollment assistance capacity in African American and other underserved communities is to make sure that people not only get covered but use their coverage to get connected to needed care. “Having people with questions about how to use their insurance is exciting.  That means they are not just placing that card on a shelf someplace.  They are really using it,” says Carter.

With funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, UHCAN Ohio has partnered with churches and community based organizations as well as Enroll America to open 22 sites in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati.  These sites will remain open after the enrollment period ends to provide follow-up, assist with Medicaid enrollments, answer questions, and help people understand how to use their coverage and get the right care at the right time and place.

For more information on the sites, go to enrollmenthelp.