If Kathleen King gets her way, every baby born in Santa Clara County will have health insurance within a week of being born.
King, chief executive Officer of San Jose-based Healthier Kids Foundation Santa Clara County, launched the Baby Gateway program in January 2013 at three hospitals, including Saint Louise Regional Hospital in Gilroy, which was used as a pilot site.
The program, also piloted at O’Connor Hospital and later established at Valley Medical Center, is funded through grants from FIRST5 Santa Clara County, which is part of a state-wide initiative and funding tank. FIRST5 California funds, distributed to county programs throughout the state, are generated through Proposition 10, which taxes cigarettes and other tobacco products in the state.
“The objective here is to have the baby enrolled no longer than seven days from birth,” said King, who borrowed the idea from a successful program under the same name used in Santa Cruz County. “If we can give them as much as we possibly can at birth, it gives them a good start in life.”
To date, staff at SLRH’s Health Benefits Resource Center, which helps uninsured and underinsured families find and enroll in any health care programs they are eligible for, have assisted 256 babies onto their mother’s Medi-Cal health insurance through BabyGateway.
“It’s very rewarding,” said Supervisor Sylvia Alvernaz at the Health Benefits Resource Center. “We are blessed to do what we do everyday.”
Most mothers assume their newborns are automatically insured under their Medi-Cal benefits upon birth and leave the hospital not knowing that they must go through Social Services, according to Alvernaz.
To prevent that from happening, Alvernaz and her staff, who work through a partnership and have a special channel of communication with the county’s Social Services, receive a list each morning of eligible families who gave birth at SLRH. Enrollment Specialist Patricia Lopez is then called into action, contacting the mother in her room and extracting information such as home address and spelling of the baby’s name.
Once that rapport is established, Lopez goes to their room and fills out the application necessary to get the newborn on their Med-Cal plan as well as assist them in choosing a doctor and setting up their first appointment.
They also enroll eligible families for CalFresh, which helps supplement expenses for fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods, and the Text4Baby federal program that delivers free health and resource information via cell phone text messages.
“They are actually very relieved,” said Lopez, who gives the mother a special kit for new parents that includes a “What to do if Your Child Gets Sick” guidebook; other parent-help books such as “How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children;” and children’s books, including “Potter The Otter.”
Additionally, the kit has an “Advice for New Parents” manual that tells them what to expect at different intervals in their child’s life, as well as other gifts and informational materials regarding health insurance and how the Center can help them.
“Some moms already know about us and have told me they chose to have their baby at Saint Louise because of the program being here,” added Alvernaz.
The assistance does not stop there. The Center’s staff contacts new parents seven weeks later for a follow-up to make sure everything is going well; that they have received their child’s Medi-Cal cards; and are taking them to scheduled doctor’s visits.
“They are very grateful,” Alvernaz said.
The Health Benefits Resource Center (408) 848-4948 is opened weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. When a baby is born on the weekends or during a holiday, the Center’s staff gets their contact information even if they’ve left the hospital and works on the application process from that point.
The Baby Gateway program was designed with three goals: 1) to increase access to health coverage and a medical home for Medi-Cal eligible newborns; 2) to decrease avoidable emergency department use for children under the age of 1; and 3) to support Medi-Cal parents in creating a safe, healthy, and loving home in which to raise their child.
“The goal is to make sure all children in the county have health care coverage,” said King, whose Healthier Kids Foundation Santa Clara County continues to seek new partners to make their efforts possible. Baby Gateway can be reached at (408)-564-5114 ext. 203 or ba**@hk****.org.
