California HealthCare Foundation To Provide Testimony to California Performance Review Commission on Transforming Eligibility Processing.

California HealthCare Foundation

--  California's Enrollment System for Public Benefits Programs is
        Inefficient and Outdated

    --  Technology Solution Alone Not Sufficient

    --  California Must Simplify and Streamline Eligibility Rules and
        Requirements


    Who: Sam Karp, Director Health Information Technology, California
        HealthCare Foundation (CHCF)

    What: Expert Testimony to California Performance Review Commission
        (CPR) on recommendation to Transform Eligibility Processing

    When: August 20, 2004
          10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

    Where: Price Center, Ballroom AB
           UC San Diego
           9500 Gilman Drive
           La Jolla, California 92093-0076

Mr. Karp's testimony concurs with CPR findings that current systems for enrolling in California's public benefit programs are inefficient, outdated and are often a barrier to access. Through investments in developing Internet-based systems and partnerships with the State of California and local communities to implement them, CHCF has been working to modernize enrollment in public health insurance programs in California. Karp will make these points:

--California needs to better align its commitment to "eligibility" with the reality of how complex and difficult the enrollment process is to access, maneuver and administer.

--The Internet and other technologies should be used to make program enrollment more efficient and publicly accessible.

--How the system should be fixed and who should operate it are open for debate; the need to fix it is indisputable.

Karp will offer comments on specific CPR recommendations and will briefly discuss online enrollment systems developed with CHCF funding that enable eligible individuals and families - who are not enrolled - to more easily access the benefits they are entitled to receive.

Building on the success of Health-e-App, California's online enrollment system for the Healthy Families and Medi-Cal for Children programs, CHCF is working with several counties to create a true single point of entry for enrollment in a range of local and state administered health and social service programs -- no matter where in a community a family applies for assistance.

Called "One-e-App," the new system will eventually offer one-stop screening and enrollment, in more than a dozen different programs, including Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, CHDP, WIC, Food Stamps, local Healthy Kids programs and adult indigent care.

Copies of testimony will be available at the hearing and online Friday, August 20, at www.chcf.org.

The California HealthCare Foundation, based in Oakland, Calif., is an independent philanthropy committed to improving California's health care delivery and financing systems. Visit www.chcf.org for more information.