Take Care Utah to the Rescue

Many of the people and organizations featured on KUTV’s investigative series Get Gephardt would rather be anywhere else. But not Take Care Utah (TCU). In late March KUTV’s Matt Gephardt profiled how TCU navigators help Utah families learn about their new health insurance options.

Here’s how it happened.

In February Gephardt aired a news report about three Utah families who struggled to enroll their new babies onto the health insurance they purchased on healthcare.gov. According to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), a birth or adoption triggers a 60-day window to enroll anyone in the family on new insurance. 

But Gephardt showed how these families were denied coverage by their insurers, or given inadequate information by the health insurance marketplace—leaving them with thousands of dollars in uncovered bills. After intervention by Gephardt’s staff, each of these families was able to enroll their new baby in coverage.
But KUTV and Gephardt kept getting calls from other Utah families who struggled to enroll their new babies on ACA insurance.

That’s where Take Care Utah stepped in. We called Get Gephardt and explained how Take Care Utah’s statewide network of trained experts can troubleshoot ACA or Medicaid enrollment glitches.

So on Monday March 30^th Get Gephardt aired a follow-up segment reporting how TCU’s team of navigators helped many more families who contacted KUTV after the original story aired. In each case, Take Care Utah staff unraveled the complicated timelines and paperwork to get everyone in these families insured. 

You can read the story and watch the video at the links below.

Take Care Utah on KUTV’s Get Gephardt (3/30/15)

Story (link)

Video (link)

This KUTV story represents the second time the troubleshooting work of Take Care Utah has been shown in the media.

After the Salt Lake Tribune reported how a Utah mother was unable to sign up for health insurance on healthcare.gov, and incorrectly told that her daughter didn’t qualify for Medicaid, a TCU navigator was able to sit down one-on-one and finish her application in a few days.

“Alicia Hobson, whose attempt to get insurance last year was bungled by bureaucratic mistakes, says she was able to get insured more easily this time around. A navigator from Community Health Connect in Provo, a TakeCareUtah.org partner, met her at the library near her Lehi home, and helped her with some of the questions on HealthCare.gov, she said. "I even decided to splurge and get dental insurance," said Hobson, who cannot afford the $500-per-month insurance her employer, a call center, offers.  Dental coverage added $15 per month to the $75 per month she'll pay for her and her daughter, who apparently qualifies for Medicaid even though last year that was not clear.  

(“Feds say more than 109,000 Utahns have signed up for health insurance,” Salt Lake Tribune, 1/17/15)

About Take Care Utah

Take Care Utah (TCU) is the Utah-based enrollment expert for healthcare.gov and the Affordable Care

Act (ACA). TCU is a partnership between the Association for Utah Community Health (AUCH), the Utah Health Policy Project (UHPP), and the United Way of Salt Lake 2-1-1. 

Take Care Utah’s 120+ trained navigators and application counselors offer outreach and enrollment assistance to Utah residents across the state free of charge. Most Utah navigators and applications counselors are based in health clinics, hospitals, nonprofit organizations, schools, libraries, and insurance brokerages. Over the last two years TCU’s affiliates have helped over 180,000 Utahns to better understand their new insurance options. You can locate your nearest Take Care Utah assistor by going to www.takecareutah.org, or by calling 2-1-1 from anywhere in the state.