Guest blog by Bob Cohen, Esq. Policy Director at Citizen Action of New York and Public Policy and Education Fund of New York.

Fall is almost here, which means it’s time to start thinking about open enrollment! For the fourth consecutive year, HCFANY is teaming up with the Health Education Project of NY (HEPNY) and other groups to hold outreach and enrollment summits throughout New York State. This year, we’ll also be focusing on post-enrollment challenges. We encourage navigators, certified application counselors, health advocates, community members, health providers, union members, health insurance plan representatives, and small business representatives to attend.

Over 2.5 million New Yorkers filed applied for health coverage with NY State of Health last year — a great success!

This is a great opportunity to focus on continuing issues. First, there are still many “hard-to-reach” individuals that still have not enrolled in health coverage because of issues like language barriers and lack of information even if they qualify for free or low-cost coverage through Medicaid or the Essential Plan. Second, some people are unfamiliar with many elements of how health coverage works, like deductibles and co-pays and navigating their plan’s network. Other individuals do not know what to do if they experience a problem, like medical bills that seem incorrect.

Each summit will feature a presentation on the state of outreach and enrollment by a NY State of Health representative, followed by speakers from Community Health Advocates (CHA) about how they can help consumers with post-enrollment issues, and finally presentations by the Health Care Education Project and Lois Uttley, Director of Raising Women’s Voices-New York, on health literacy. The first summit will be held on Wednesday, September 28 at the 1199SEIU in Albany from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Please see the Statewide Flyer for the complete schedule of outreach and enrollment summits.