CHILDREN’S HEALTHCARE ACCESS PROGRAM

The number of Kent County children who rely on Medicaid for their medical coverage increases every year; it’s now approximately one in three. As that number grows, it becomes more and more difficult for low-income families to access primary healthcare. The Children’s Healthcare Access Program, the first initiative of First Steps, is designed to help children get the care and support they need to stay healthy.

The Children’s Healthcare Access Program has two primary goals: to improve the health of our community’s children and reduce the cost of providing healthcare by avoiding expensive emergency room visits and hospitalizations.

To achieve those goals, the Children’s Healthcare Access Program is committed to the idea that all children deserve to have a medical home—a doctor’s office or clinic—where they can always go for regular checkups, immunizations and treatment when they are sick.

The Children’s Healthcare Access Program supports the medical home policy statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics:

“The medical care of infants, children and adolescents ideally should be accessible, continuous, comprehensive, family centered, coordinated, compassionate, and culturally effective. It should be delivered or directed by well-trained physicians who provide primary care and help to manage and facilitate essentially all aspects of pediatric care. The physician should be known to the child and family and should be able to develop a partnership of mutual responsibility and trust with them.”

A one-year pilot project began August 1, 2008, involving between 14,000-15,000 children in Kent County who are enrolled in Priority Health Medicaid. Priority Health, Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital, four community medical clinics, four private pediatric practices and numerous human service agencies are significant partners in the program.

The Children’s Healthcare Access Program comes in response to tremendous community needs. First Steps conducted a study looking at the health of publicly insured children compared to the health of children with private insurance. Both in Kent County and in Michigan, children with Medicaid have poorer health outcomes:

• Significantly higher hospitalization rate
• More severe illnesses resulting in hospitalization
• Significantly higher rate of respiratory illnesses, such as asthma
• More visits to the emergency room
• Higher readmission rates for newborns after discharge from the hospital

Those disparities are costly. We estimate the cost savings statewide would be between $150 and $200 million a year if publicly insured children in Michigan had the same hospitalization rate as privately insured children.

Download Data on Children’s Health

The Children’s Healthcare Access Program is collaborating with the Colorado Children’s Healthcare Access Program, which is providing consistent, high quality care to thousands of children. CCHAP has led to reduced costs and better health outcomes for children in Colorado—results we expect to see in Kent County.