Major Medicaid and CHIP outreach effort launched by groups across U.S.

Washington -- The Dept. of Health and Human Services has awarded nearly half of the grants in its largest-ever effort to sign up children who are eligible for federal health programs but not enrolled in them.

HHS estimates that about 5 million children are eligible but not enrolled in Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program. Medicaid covers more than 32 million children, while CHIP covers more than 7 million kids.

The Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act, signed by President Obama in February, includes $100 million in grants for organizations to step up their Medicaid and CHIP outreach efforts between 2009 and 2013. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services has awarded $40 million of the grants to 69 organizations.

"Our charge here today is to get all eligible children covered to ensure they are healthy throughout their childhood," HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement. The grants are targeting organizations that work in areas with high percentages of eligible-but-uninsured children, especially in racial and ethnic minority groups.

One recipient is the Mississippi Primary Health Care Assn., a network of 21 federally qualified community health centers around the state. The group is receiving $988,152 to train 21 community outreach specialists -- one for each health center -- to identify eligible-but-unenrolled children, said Robert M. Pugh, MPH, the association's executive director.

The 21 specialists will reach out to families in schools, Head Start programs, churches, health fairs and stores. "Anything we can do to get the word out," Pugh said.

Another recipient, the Medical College of Georgia Research Institute, will use its $986,827 grant to look for eligible children with the help of 12 high-poverty rural school districts, said Sandra Mobley, RN, PhD, an assistant professor at the Medical College of Georgia's Obstetrics & Gynecology Dept. In Georgia, "there's very little school-based outreach, if any," she said.

The program is modeled on a Robert Wood Johnson pilot project that reduced the percentage of uninsured children by 25% in Clark County, Ga., Mobley said. Program administrators will survey parents in these 12 districts in an effort to identify uninsured children and give them information about enrolling in CHIP. Employers also will receive information about offering payroll deduction for CHIP premiums.