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Bi-State Primary Care Association recommends that the Medicaid
Modernization Project continue to invest in the New Hampshire Healthy
Kids Program and in enrolling every eligible child.
We believe that all children should have access to health care
regardless of their family’s ability to pay.
Children in the Healthy Kids Gold Program would benefit from having a
designated family doctor and dentist to ensure that they receive the
needed preventive and primary care services in the most appropriate
setting.
The evaluation of the NH Healthy Kids Silver program demonstrates
that the program is working. The
children have access to care. They
are using the primary care setting and avoiding costly hospitalizations
and emergency room use.
New Hampshire’s state general fund investment in the Healthy Kids
Silver Program is very highly leveraged by family premiums and
co-payments, negotiated physician and hospital discounts, Healthy NH
Foundation grants, and an enhanced federal financial match of 65%.
It is a very cost effective public-private partnership.
New Hampshire’s Healthy Kids Silver Program applies private sector
principles of cost sharing. In
fact, the level of family cost sharing relative to like programs in
other states is the highest in the Nation.
The NH Healthy Kids Gold and Silver programs are not the programs
that are the primary cost drivers for the Medicaid program.
The annualized cost per child is very small as compared to the
annualized cost of serving the needy elderly and disabled populations.
The programs could, however, benefit from the implementation of a
disease management program for children’s asthma to avert emergency
room use. They would also
benefit from the continued use of effective pharmacy benefit management
tools to manage rising pharmaceutical costs.
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Bi-State Primary Care Association is a private, charitable 501 C 3
non-profit, non-partisan, mission-driven membership organization.
Bi-State’s New Hampshire members include community health
centers, private primary care practices, horizontal networks, a
community action program, area health education centers, and a family
practice residency program.
In 2003, New Hampshire’s 11 Community Health Centers serving 21
sites provided primary and preventive care services for over 20,000
children with insurance and over 3,500 children without health
insurance. New
Hampshire’s Community Health Centers partner with the Department of
Health and Human Services and the NH Healthy Kids Corp. to assist
families in completing enrollment applications.
In 2003, the CHCs assisted families with the completion of over
4,000 applications.
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