Black Health Collaborative Forum March 8th

“The Black Health Collaborative will be hosting its first forum of the year March 8, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Crossroads Theater, 2590 Washington Street, Denver. For more information and to RSVP, contact coloradobhc@yahoo.com or 720-579-2126.

This forum is a community conversation addressing community issues, including interracial families, single parenting, non-traditional families, our youth and safe sex, today's black woman, domestic violence, GLBTI and the black community, and other topics. Special guests: Brother Jeff and more!”  [Source: COPrevent]

Register for The Forum 2014 TODAY!

The 14th Annual Forum: Essential Perspectives for Safety Net Providers will be held April 9-11, 2014 at the Sheraton Denver West in Lakewood, bringing together participants from all over Colorado and the surrounding states.  Co-hosted by ClinicNET and the Colorado Rural Heath Center, The Forum serves as an essential education, training, and networking conference for all safety net clinics and other interested parties. Register today – early bird rates end March 7th!  Check out the agenda (subject to change) and the website for more information.

Serve as a Host Site for Clinicians Reentering the Workforce

In order to safely return to clinical practice after an extended absence, physicians and other health professionals are often required to be supervised or monitored for a period of time before practicing on their own.  CPEP (the Center for Personalized Education for Physicians) is seeking safety net clinics willing to serve as host sites for clinicians participating in the Clinical Practice Reentry Program.  CPEP reentry clinicians are licensed, trained, experienced, and in good standing, and have not been subject to disciplinary intervention action by a hospital, licensing board, or other entity.   These clinicians left practice voluntarily for a variety of reasons, such as family obligations, personal health reasons, alternate careers, or retirement, and wish to return to the workforce to practice in the same specialty.  Serving as a host site can provide your clinic with:

• The opportunity to work with health professionals on a trial basis, which may lead to successful permanent recruitment.  Reentry clinicians are looking for long term placement opportunities.
• Increased patient volume as the level of required supervision gradually decreases and the reentry clinician sees patients independently.
• A rewarding teaching experience for your staff in assisting a peer with returning to clinical practice.
• The ability to help address Colorado’s increasing healthcare workforce shortage.

For more information, contact Mannat Singh at 480-313-2305 or reentry@cpepdoc.org.

New Video: How Health Insurance Works

“Sometimes health insurance can be confusing.  What’s a co-payment? How do deductibles work? Our new video will help:  How Health Insurance Works.

You can also find detailed explanations of many insurance-related terms in our Health Glossary.

Finally, don’t miss our ever-expanding Frequently Asked Questions section, which now offers 181 helpful explanations related to Medicaid, Child Health Plan Plus, the Connect for Health Colorado marketplace, private insurance, and much more.  For more information visit Colorado.gov/health.”  [Source: Colorado.gov/Health]

HCPF Updates

“Help Improve the HCPF Website:  The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing website will be changing for the better – and we need your help. Please take our brief website survey and give us your feedback by Friday, February 28.

Colorado.gov/HCPF/shareyourstory: The Department needs personal stories about how Medicaid or Child Health Plan Plus (CHP+) has made a positive impact on you, a client or patient. Client stories can help the Department educate other Coloradans about the benefits of health insurance coverage. For more information or if you know of a client that may be willing to share their personal story with us visit Colorado.gov/hcpf/ShareYourStory.

Decommissioning of Old Peak Website on March 16:  The www.peak.state.co.us site with the mountain banner will be decommissioned on March 16, 2014.  This is the old PEAK site that was replaced by the Salesforce site.  Once the site is decommissioned, there will no longer be a redirect to the correct website (http://coloradopeak.force.com), and you will receive an error.  A message regarding the decommissioning of the site will display in English and Spanish when you access the www.peak.state.co.us site and redirect you in 30 seconds to the http://coloradopeak.force.com until March 16, 2014.

Upcoming PEAK Support Call: Wednesday, March 5, 12:00pm-1:00pm. Dial (712) 432-0220 and enter passcode 5642211#

ACA Communications Webinar Online Now: The Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, Division of Insurance and Connect for Health Colorado released a new joint communications webinar.  The new webinar can be found on Colorado.gov/HCPF/ACAResources or by clicking here.

Medicaid Eligibility for Former Foster Care Youth: Qualifying Former Foster Care Youth are now eligible for Medicaid -- regardless of their income -- up to age 26. The Department encourages outreach workers to prompt Former Foster Care Youth to update their address with their county of residence to receive important information. For more information about Former Foster Care Youth Medicaid Eligibility, please see the Department’s Frequently Asked Questions on Colorado.gov/HCPF/ACAResources.

Click here to view the latest ACA Implementation News from February 20th.  This issue provides links to the most recent resources from the Department and important information about PEAK.  It also contains the latest enrollment metrics from Connect for Health Colorado and Medicaid.”  [Source:  HCPF]

CDPHE's 2013 Health Disparities Report

“Health disparities are differences in health status, access to care, or quality of care among groups with social, economic, and/or environmental disadvantage — e.g., groups based on race or ethnicity; religion; socioeconomic status; gender; age; mental health; cognitive, sensory, or physical disability; sexual orientation or gender identity; or geographic location.

In Colorado, Blacks have a significantly higher prevalence of many health risk behaviors and conditions compared with Whites, including diabetes (12% vs 6%, respectively), asthma (18% vs 9%), obesity (28% vs 19%), and no leisure-time physical activity (27% vs 14%).

For more information on health disparities in Colorado, see CDPHE Office of Health Equity’s 2013 Health Disparities Report.  For more information about chronic disease data in Colorado, contact renee.calanan@state.co.us.”  [Source:  COPrevent]

Medical Assistance (MA) Mass Update

“EDBC will automatically be run on these cases and results authorized in order to generate the following med span information that is required for budget/funding purposes and federal reporting:

• Income Rating Code – this code is generated based on the client’s household size and income and is used to identify enrollment fees and co-pays for CHP+ clients.
• FPL Bracket Code – this code is generated based on the client’s net countable income and is used to identify claims associated with target populations and to allocate the expenditure to the proper federal match rate for all MA clients.
• Benchmark Identifier Code – this code is generated based on the client’s demographics and is used to identify which clients fall into federally required benchmark-related categories in order to be in enrolled in the appropriate benchmark benefit plan for MAGI Adult and MAGI Parent/Caretaker clients.

The mass update will run in the evening and will begin on 3/5/2014 and be completed by 3/9/2014.

If a case is not successfully authorized by the system, the case will be included within the Mass Update Exception report.  This report should be reviewed and MA cases authorized.

Questions regarding this communication may be directed to medicaid.eligibility@hcpf.state.co.us.”  [Source:  HCPF]