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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 17, 2019

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Jeff Van Ness, (202) 204-7515,
jvanness@communityplans.net

NEW ACAP REPORT PROFILES SAFETY NET HEALTH PLAN EFFORTS TO PROMOTE EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT  

WASHINGTON—A new report from the Association for Community Affiliated Plans (ACAP) profiles the efforts of four Safety Net Health Plans to help their members attain higher levels of education and find meaningful employment.

The report—Where Education, Employment and Health Meet—highlights the powerful role that education and employment play in health. In addition to highlighting health plan initiatives, it offers policy recommendations to help promote education and workforce development.

The report details social determinants of health initiatives of four ACAP-member plans:

• Community Health Choice, whose CareerReady program offers coaching services, connections to community resources to address social needs, employment search assistance including mock interviews and resume editing, and support during school enrollment to high school seniors and expecting mothers under the age of 30;
• CareSource, whose JobConnect program helps stabilize participants’ food and housing security, then provides coaching and helps members connected with education or employment opportunities and obtain long-term employment opportunities;
• Amida Care, whose Workforce Initiative Network offers members marketable job skills through a six- to seven-week training program, and whose Consumer Workforce Innovation project supports consumers to obtain Community Health Outreach Worker certification through the New York Department of Health AIDS Institute; and
• AmeriHealth Caritas, whose Mission GED program has supported more than 1,000 members to date in their efforts to earn a high school equivalency certificate through the GED or HiSET exams.

“We have long held the tenet that Medicaid helps people be better prepared for employment. Employment shouldn’t be a condition of Medicaid coverage,” said ACAP CEO Margaret A. Murray. “This report shows how Safety Net Health Plans are helping their members to become workforce-ready, and how they go the extra mile to assure that other social determinants such as food and housing are stable so that once their members find a job, they can excel.”

Notably Safety Net Health Plans serving the Medicaid population often operate educational and employment support initiatives such as those profiled here—which do not meet the Medicaid definitions of “medical services”—at their own costs or through or through private investors, local governments and community organizations.

The report recommends that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services consider approving demonstrations which increase investment in and access to targeted social determinants of health interventions.

States could work with managed care plans to come up with a meaningful innovation model, facilitated via Section 1115 waivers as observed in the case studies.

The report was authored by Marlen Torres, Director of Government and Community Relations at Gold Coast Health Plan, under the auspices of ACAP’s John G. Lovelace Policy Fellowship.

For more, visit www.communityplans.net.

About ACAP:
ACAP represents 66 health plans which collectively provide health coverage to more than 20 million people in 29 states. Safety Net Health Plans serve their members through Medicaid, Medicare, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Marketplace and other publicly-sponsored health programs. For more information, visit www.communityplans.net.