For the past seven Affordable Care Act Health Insurance Marketplace open enrollment periods–times when individuals across the nation can purchase insurance on the ACA exchange–the WHI has helped coordinate community outreach and enrollment efforts with members of its Medicaid and Marketplace Outreach and Enrollment (MMOE) work group.
We’re pleased to share results from the eighth Health Insurance Marketplace Open Enrollment Period (OE8), which took place from November 1, 2020 to December 15, 2020.
Due to COVID-19, the WHI focused primarily on virtual outreach strategies. Paper and electronic flyers were developed in English, Spanish, and Mandarin. And the WHI MMOE group worked with 55 local entities–including faith-based organizations, K-12 schools, local colleges, restaurants, healthcare clinics, county offices, COVID-19 testing centers, and EMS providers–to get these flyers to uninsured and underinsured populations.
Volunteers from Propel, a student organization of the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, developed a social media campaign and a web-based platform for students at Eastern Michigan University and Washtenaw Community College to register for appointments with local health insurance navigators.
Michigan Medicine, St. Joseph Mercy Health System, and the Washtenaw Health Plan–all institutional and active members of the MMOE work group–shared data about the number of applications they helped to process this past year. Altogether, they worked with Washtenaw County residents to submit 6,200 Medicaid applications and 387 Health Insurance Marketplace applications.