The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hosted its National Children's Health Insurance Summit in Chicago on November 4 - 6 in Chicago.  The purpose of the summit was to provide a forum for states, agencies, and organizations to share strategies for increasing the enrollment and retention of children in Medicaid and the Children's Health insurance Program (CHIP).  Cindy Mann, CMS Director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations, reported that representatives from every state attended the summit. 
 
Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius was the keynote speaker for the opening session of the summit.  She emphasized President Obama's administration's commitment to providing health insurance coverage to all American children.  She expressed confidence that health care reform legislation will be signed into law by the President this year; however, in order to ensure that health insurance would be available to low-income children pending implementation of health care reform, the President signed the Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act (CHIPRA) in February 2009.  In addition to providing funding necessary to allow states to continue CHIP programs, CHIPRA provided $80 million to facilitate state and local outreach to children and families and to encourage innovations in efforts to get and keep children enrolled.  The Secretary reported 5 million of the 8 million uninsured children in the United States are eligible for CHIP or Medicaid. 
 
Enrollment and retention innovations discussed at the Summit included:

• Presumptive eligibility - enrollment of children while the application for benefits is pending;
  
• Express Lane eligibility - using data from applications for other benefit programs, such as free and reduced lunch, to establish eligibility for Medicaid/CHIP; and
  
• Eligibility retention - streamlining the renewal application process.

School districts were identified as the "obvious place to look for uninsured children."  Diane Fager, Finance Director of Policy and Program Development, Chicago Public Schools, participated in a panel discussion of school-based outreach successes.  Successes usually involved use of one or more of the innovations listed above. CMS support of school-based Medicaid/CHIP outreach initiatives should help improve Medicaid reimbursement for school districts.
           
Genevieve Kinney, PhD, reported that the number of uninsured low-income children has declined during the economic recession while the number of uninsured for other groups has increased.  The decline in the number of uninsured low-income children is directly attributed to increased enrollment in Medicaid and CHIP.  According to Dr. Kinney, research reflects that health care insurance for low-income children provides significant health care benefits. An example is research findings of decreases in the numbers of asthma attacks and hospitalizations due to asthma when children have access to health dare.
 
Going forward, Cindy Mann advised summit participants to identify barriers to CHIP/Medicaid enrollment, work with state Medicaid agencies and CMS Regional Office, tell CMS what support is needed, and share outreach successes.  To provide additional guidance and information for Medicaid/CHIP outreach, CMS has created a new website. www.InsureKidsNow.gov