Report: Successful Medicaid Enrollment Strategies to Cover the Uninsured

Between 2013 and 2014 the number of adults without health care coverage fell by 8 million individuals, driven largely by an increase in Medicaid enrollment. Many, however, remain without coverage – leaving Medicaid with the potential to cover 12 million uninsured adults.

Two states that succeeded in increasing coverage are Kentucky and Arkansas. A new report from UnitedHealth Group, Successful Medicaid Enrollment Strategies to Cover the Uninsured, focuses on common strategic approaches they adopted to enroll their uninsured state residents. These approaches include:

Integrating administration and enrollment

• Leveraging cross-platform information sharing and data-verification tools to confirm consumers’ eligibility, deliver consumer-friendly application experiences, and avoid unnecessary delays in providing coverage.

Establishing multiple application pathways

• Allowing consumers to enroll in person, online, by phone, or through the mail and to experience a simple, standard enrollment process regardless of how and where they initiate their application.

Providing robust consumer assistance

• Including statewide outreach and targeted strategies to reach specific communities, such as residents in isolated rural areas and non-English speakers, and ensuring credentialed assisters can help consumers initiate and complete their applications.

Developing high-impact awareness campaigns

• Delivering clear messages through multiple channels to reach potential applicants, encouraging enrollment, and leveraging relationships with community-based organizations and other partners to amplify the impact.

These approaches, which can be tailored to local market conditions and needs, serve as practical examples to be considered by states seeking to cover more of their uninsured. Effective use of these approaches could lead to covering as many as one in three remaining uninsured adults.

FULL REPORT