Connecticut has done a done a good job getting more residents enrolled in health insurance since passage of the Affordable Care Act, but there’s an urgent need for more health insurance literacy among the newly insured, minorities and others, according to a white paper released today with ideas for improvement.
The paper by FAIR Health, “Improving Health Insurance Literacy in the State of Connecticut: Lessons from the FAIR Health Engage Health CT Program,” defines health insurance literacy as the degree to which people have the knowledge, ability and confidence to find and evaluate information about health plans, select the best plan for their needs and use it once enrolled.
“Ironically, barriers to understanding and using coverage may reinforce the racial/ethnic disparities that the ACA sought to eliminate, undermining the law’s potential to advance health equity,” the paper said, adding that literacy can be enhanced, in part, by mobile technologies since the majority of lower income people use smartphones to access health information.
FAIR Health, a nonprofit that uses a database of medical and dental claims to power free cost-lookup tools, used a CT Health Foundation grant to develop a mobile app in English and Spanish, FH Cost Lookup CT” to help improve health insurance literacy, cost transparency and care engagement. Hispanics, in particular, would use an app, but also prefer in-person healthcare information, research found.
FAIR Health notes in the paper that insured and uninsured individuals are unaware they can discuss healthcare prices with providers either before receiving a service or after a receiving a bill.
The report concludes addressing health insurance literacy could include:
– Developing age-appropriate, standardized curricula for teaching health insurance basics to students as early as high school and/or college and collaborating with educators about effective strategies to disseminate such curricula.
– Developing educational content to distribute in community-based settings, including culturally relevant, in-person health insurance information that could be delivered to consumers during health appointments and events, coverage enrollment and social services.
– Coupling in-person educational efforts with free mobile and web-based tools that offer healthcare cost information and that promote consumer engagement in navigating the healthcare system, including clear glossaries, instructional videos and recommended questions to pose to healthcare providers and plan representatives.
