Eligibility & Enrollment

Eligibility & Enrollment

The Alameda Health Consortium coordinates eligibility and enrollment efforts with our eight community health centers to ensure that patients successfully enroll in Medi-Cal, CalFresh, Covered California, HealthPAC (Health Program of Alameda County), and other public health coverage programs for which they are eligible. The Alameda Health Consortium’s Eligibility and Enrollment Department provides our member community health centers with training, resources, and technical support.

May is CalFresh Awareness Month!

CalFresh, known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP, provides monthly food benefits to individuals and families with low-income and provides economic benefits to communities. CalFresh is the largest food program in California and provides an essential hunger safety net. CalFresh is federally mandated and in California, is state-supervised and county-operated.

The Need

Our Eligibility and Enrollment Department manages the On-Site Medi-Cal Eligibility (OSME) program which can help alleviate the complex enrollment processes into the Medi-Cal and other public health coverage programs. Through the OSME program, our clinic liaisons help assist with increasing the number of community health center patients’ successful Medi-Cal application approval and retention of program benefits.

Our Approach

The goal of the OSME is to facilitate the enrollment of individuals and families in Medi-Cal and to continue to retain their benefits. The program is a joint effort between the Alameda Health Consortium, the Alameda County Social Services Agency, and our member Community Health Centers. The OSME Program consists of four major components:

• • Alameda County Medi-Cal eligibility workers are out-stationed at our community health centers to support approving new Medi-Cal applications;
  • Community health center program liaisons assist patients with new Medi-Cal applications;
  • Medi-Cal eligibility bi-monthly liaison trainings; and
  • Ongoing monitoring and coordination of our program for maximizing effectiveness

Individuals applying for Medi-Cal and CalFresh through community health centers receive extensive assistance from health center staff who provide expertise and understand of the eligibility and enrollment criteria. Enrollment staff help explain how to complete the application criteria, collect required documentation, and preparation for County eligibility review and approval. Additionally, health center staff assist Medi-Cal and CalFresh beneficiaries with their annual renewals, so that they do not lose their health coverage.

Alameda Health Consortium works with more than 100 eligibility and enrollment staff across our community health centers, by coordinating enrollment efforts, tracking changes in Medi-Cal CalFresh, Covered California health plans, and HealthPAC, and providing ongoing training and technical assistance to health center staff.

Current Grant-Funded Programs

Covered California Navigator Program

As Navigator Program grantees, Alameda Health Consortium (AHC) and our member health centers are supporting patients and the community with enrollment into Covered California qualified health plans. We have either met or surpassed our goals the last 5 years as navigator grantees. For the upcoming 2019-2020 program year AHC and our community health centers will strive to support our target goal of 2,857 subsidy-eligible consumers.

CalFresh Outreach Program

In an effort to reduce the epidemic of food insecurity in Alameda County, AHC is partnered with the Redwood Community Health Coalition (RCHC) to promote the CalFresh Outreach Project for a 3-year grant period. CalFresh outreach, enrollment, and renewal efforts are carried out to ensure that our health center members and their families have access to appropriate food and nutrition benefits offered through CalFresh. We continue to raise awareness for the benefits of CalFresh participants including Market Match and Bonus Bucks that can be used at local Farmer’s Markets to purchase healthy, seasonable, grocery options. In addition, our member health centers outreach to and assist the newly eligible SSI/Disabled population with CalFresh applications in support of the SSI expansion.

Are you not qualified for Medi-Cal? Learn more about HealthPAC at achealthcare.org, a website created by a collaboration of safety net health providers to provide assistance to thousands of uninsured residents looking for health services.