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Health-e-App Public Access: A New Online Path to Children’s Health Care Coverage in California

Making it easier and more convenient for eligible families to apply for Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program is a commonly cited best practice for increasing enrollment into these programs. For this reason, many policymakers and health care-coverage advocates view self-service online applications as a promising path to coverage. Mathematica is studying the first year of California’s self-service online application system, Health-e-App Public Access (HeA PA).

Health-e-App is a web-based application that was originally designed for enrolling low-income children and pregnant women in the Healthy Families Program (California’s Children’s Health Insurance Program) or screening them for Medi-Cal for Families (a Medicaid program). The California HealthCare Foundation and The California Endowment supported its development, in partnership with the Managed Risk Medical Insurance Board, the California Department of Health Care Services, MAXIMUS, and Social Interest Solutions. Health-e-App was pilot tested in San Diego County. Since 2000, certified application assistants and other professionals have used Health-e-App when they help residents apply for health coverage. The self-service version of the tool, HeA PA, was launched in December 2010 to enable applicants to use it independently via the internet. In January 2013, California closed new enrollment in the Healthy Families Program, but the state continues to process HeA PA applications for Medi-Cal for Families.

Mathematica’s study of HeA PA is designed to provide information about:

• The types of applicants that use HeA PA, and how they compare to applicants who apply on paper or online with professional assistance
  
• How applicants learn about HeA PA
  
• The effects of an outreach campaign on awareness and use of HeA PA
  
• HeA PA applicants’ experience with the online tool
  
• Whether the availability of HeA PA seems to affect application and enrollment levels

Focusing on the first year of HeA PA’s availability (December 2010 to December 2011), our study uses data from applications, optional survey questions that were integrated into HeA PA applications, interviews with certified application assistants who use HeA when they help families apply for coverage, and web analytics from an online outreach campaign to promote awareness of HeA PA among eligible families.

Project Publications

"An Overview of the First Year, Research Brief 1," March 2012
"Applicant Characteristics and Experiences, Research Brief 2," February 2013
"Outreach to Low-Income Families During the First Year of HeA PA, Research Brief 3" (forthcoming 2013)
"HeA PA from the Perspective of Certified Application Assistants, Research Brief 4" (forthcoming 2013)