The large (and growing) number of uninsured children in America prompted Congress to establish the State Child Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) to provide health insurance for children in families who do not qualify for Medicaid, yet can not afford to purchase private insurance - in short, the working poor. This insurance is available at little or no cost to eligible families. Unfortunately, low numbers of applicants have been endemic to this program nationwide. To alleviate this problem, many administrators have turned to contractors to provide the intense outreach and application assistance needed to increase program enrollment.

Automated Health Systems brings a unique perspective to the development and administration of effective SCHIP outreach, education and enrollment projects through the development of Projects in the 1980s that were precursors to the new Federal law. During the 1980s, states were provided funding through existing or one-time block grants to provide health services to children of families that did not qualify for Medicaid. In 1983 the Emergency Expenditure to Meet National Needs Act provided a one-time block grant to states for the development of systems and methods to cover newly unemployed families as they made the transition to a new job or ultimately qualified for Medicaid. The Jobs Bill as it came to be known in Pennsylvania was a joint venture between the Pennsylvania State Department of Health and Automated Health Systems. Through the Jobs Bill, AHS developed a consumer outreach, education and enrollment system, a statewide provider network, and a payment mechanism that provided prenatal, obstetrical, postpartum, and pediatric care for pregnant women and children up to age 21. The Project was so successful that the State applied for, and received additional federal dollars to continue the Program beyond its scheduled end date.

Several years later, we once again teamed with the PA Department of Health to provide health services to children and teenagers through age 17 using Title V dollars. The Children's Access to Primary Services (CHAPS) Program was also based on the model previously developed during our tenure as Jobs Bill and EPSDT administrators.

Both the Jobs Bill and CHAPS were some of the first attempts at solving the puzzle of providing health care to the growing number of uninsured in the country. They also provided AHS with invaluable experience in dealing with a different type of clientele (the working poor), and that, in turn, led to our participation in several SCHIP Projects in Ohio, as well as projects in West Virginia and New York.

While the foundation of our SCHIP operation is our Helpline, we have bolstered promotion about SCHIP and the application process via extensive field outreach, which focuses on recruiting community entities to partner with us and "spread the word" about SCHIP.

• In our Wisconsin BadgerCare contract (obtained in 1999 as part of our enrollment broker efforts), AHS conducts training sessions for professionals to help them identify and assist potentially-eligible clients with the application process (a value added service we also offer directly to consumers in the field and via our toll-free Helpline).
  
  
• SCHIP was launched in Ohio in 1998, with outreach/enrollment activities delegated to counties.  In 1999 (through 2002), Hamilton County/Cincinnati contracted with AHS for outreach and application services.  The following year (continuing through 2002), we gained our second SCHIP contract in Ohio (in Cuyahoga County/Cleveland), providing help to consumers who lost SCHIP or Medicaid eligibility, regained but did not re-enroll within a 60-day period.
  
  
• In 2001, AHS successfully sought the West Virginia SCHIP hotline contract and is the premier source for consumers desiring information regarding SCHIP or support in the application process.  We also participate in the training of provider offices in terms of SCHIP eligibility criteria and we spread the word about SCHIP eligibility criteria to provider sites.  As a result, significantly more children are qualifying for Medicaid through completion of SCHIP applications. 
  
  
• HS administers the Ohio Medicaid Consumer Hotline, which provides I&R services regarding a host of health/human service programs; as SCHIP is included, we offer Healthy Start/Healthy Families education, information and application assistance, all via our toll-free Helpline.