The Health System Reform Task Force will meet May 17 at 9AM in room 450 State Capitol.  The agenda is packed!  It includes the Healthcare Compact (SB208), responding to the Affordable Care Act, the formation of workgroups, a discussion about federally facilitated vs. state based health insurance exchanges, and selecting a benchmark plan as the Essential Health Benefits Package.

Hackers stole the personal information of about one quarter of the state’s population from a health department computer in late March.  On May 2^nd Dr. Dave Patton, Executive Director of Utah’s Department of Health, Michael Hales, Deputy Director Dept. of Health, and Scott Morrill from the Utah Attorney General’s Office met with consumers and advocates for two hours.  They answered questions and listened to consumer concerns about last month’s health data breach.

Michael Hales talked about the steps the Department is taking to help Utahns whose information was stolen. You can see his presentation on UHPP’s website, here.

Scott Morrill discussed the Child Identity Protection (CIP) program and the Identity Theft Reporting System that the state maintains.  For more information on where to get help if you think your information might have been stolen go to Utah Department of Health’s Data Breach website.

Advocates presented Patton and Hales with a list of actions that key community groups recommend.

Key Actions and Issues from the Forum
Build an identity theft file.  If you had your Social Security number stolen, you should keep a record, or a file, of all the related information.  The information to keep includes the letter you received from the state, the actions you have taken to protect yourself (like signing up for the free credit monitoring service and freezing your credit) and credit reports. It will be important to check your credit reports for years to come. 

Freeze and monitor your credit. To freeze your credit, contact one of the nation’s free credit bureaus:

• TransUnion    https://freeze.transunion.com       1-888-909-8872
• Experian        http://www.experian.com         1-866-200-6020
• Equifax         https://www.freeze.equifax.com    1-800-685-1111

You can get one free report every year from each of the credit agencies.  So, if you request a report from a different agency every 4 months, rotating among the agencies, you can cover a whole year without having to pay anything!  You can set this up through annualcreditreport.com.

File a claim if you suffer monetary loss because your identity was stolen.  You should file a claim through the State Division of Risk Management if your information was stolen in the breach and, for example, someone uses your credit or applies for a credit card in your name.

UHPP finds it troubling that the Utah Risk Management Division has yet to put together a protocol (with the Attorney General’s office) for people to file their claims. In an interview with UHPP, Jim Christensen of the Division of Risk Management said it will take them about 2 weeks to have the tools in place so that people can file a claim for any financial damages that result from the misuse of their stolen personal information.

When or if the time comes to file a claim, you’ll need this claim number for the health data breach: 76845.

Be prepared to answer basic questions that describe the loss (who, what, when, where, why).

If you have any questions, the Risk Management employee assigned to the health data breach is Jim Christensen at the Division of Risk Management: (801) 538-9574.

Email: jimchristensen@utah.gov.

Fax loss information to (801) 538-9597

Mail loss information to:             Utah State Risk Management,
5120 State Office Building, Salt Lake City, Utah 84114.

The security breach is going to cost the state a lot of money.  At the forum Rep. Rebecca Chavez-Houck asked about the possibility of reparations payment to the victims for hardship and the time commitment it will take to recover from the breach.  Dr. Patton responded “When you start talking about reparations, any number times 700,000 is going to be a big number.”  UHPP would like to revisit this issue with the new advisory committee and once we know more about the scale of the damages.

For now, we know this:

Credit monitoring poses unique challenges for populations with special needs. Adults with disabilities who are being cared for by a parent or other caretaker often don’t have a credit history of their own.  But their identity still can be used by other people.  Monitoring or freezing credit may not be an option for them.

Community organizations and provider groups want to help, but how they can help still is not clear.  The state welcomes the collaboration of community organizations.  They have agreed to form and support an advisory committee with UHPP.  If you want to participate, please send email to randal@healthpolicyproject.org. It is up to us to define what we can do to help.  The first step in that direction is to understand the characteristics of the people whose Social Security numbers were stolen.  For example, how many have disabilities?  How many are seniors? How many are in Spanish-speaking families?  Are they concentrated in certain parts of the state?

 Since the forum, community organizations are:

• Requesting data from the Department of Workforce Services to track the impact of the breach on Medicaid and CHIP applications, enrollment, and renewals
• Documenting breach-related activities and solutions that may need funding
• Pressing the state to include Spanish language versions of all breach-related information on the DOH website and on the AG’s CIP (Child Identity Protection) program and identity theft reporting information on the Attorney General’s website.
• Speeding up the protocol for filing claims through the Division of Risk Management

What you can do to help:

• Distribute the information provided here as widely as possible
• Forward any concerns or stories to randal@healthpolicyproject.org.
• Stay tuned for more tools you can use to help individuals who had their information stolen

The Interim Session gives policymakers an opportunity to study issues in depth and prepare any needed legislation for 2013.

This year the Health System Reform Task Force will meet from 9-2 on interim Thursdays in room 450 at the Capitol.  The Task Force is the legislative body that studies and makes recommendations about health reform.

This Thursday (May 17) the Task Force will be forming workgroups to address the many issues listed in HB144 (Rep. Dunnigan, 2011)—check out last month’s article for more information.   Of note, the Task Force will be studying and making recommendations about Utah’s health reform, including the Essential Benefit Package and consumer assistance (Navigators).   You can get involved by attending committee meetings (they are open to the public), listening online, and signing up for workgroups.

This year’s Task Force members are:

Other important health care topics of this interim are:
1) Wellness:  Rep. Ray’s good decision to kill his “smoking” bill during the 2011 session means Utah will study and form a wellness incentive program for people enrolled in Medicaid (see our recent brief).
2) Behavioral and Mental health integration:  Utah is ready to help Utahns address their physical and mental health needs together.  This is good for health and cost effective.  See the Mental Health Integration Team’s Blueprint for our work in 2012.

What’s up for May’s interim:
Executive Appropriations will meet May 15 at 1PM in room 445 State Capitol.  There’s nothing specific to health care on the agenda but they will be considering in-depth budget reviews.
Health + Human Services will meet May 16 at 2:30PM at the John A Moran Eye Center for a special briefing and tour.
Business + Labor will meet May 16 at 2PM in room 210 Senate Building.  No health reform related items are on the agenda this month.
Health System Reform Task Force will meet May 17 at 9AM in room 450 State Capitol.  The agenda is packed!  It includes the Healthcare Compact (SB208), responding to the Affordable Care Act, the formation of workgroups, a discussion about federally facilitated vs. state based health insurance exchanges, and selecting a benchmark plan as the Essential Health Benefits Package

You will find schedules, agendas, and voice recordings of interim meetings on Utah’s legislative website www.le.utah.gov.

Take Care Utah works with communities and neighborhoods to help families get healthcare coverage like Medicaid and CHIP.  Take Care Utah helps community groups build on their capacity to educate people that need help and help them enroll in insurance.  They also help people use their insurance benefits wisely.

While Utah Medicaid is addressing the recent breach of Medicaid personal information, Utah Health Policy Project, with Take Care Utah, is also working to make sure the latest information is available to everyone who needs it.  See our article in this issue of Health Matters.

Take Care Utah toolkit will be available for all community-based organizations that want to enroll kids.
We are proud to announce that the Take Care Utah Toolkit will be available (hard copy and online) for community groups that want to build on their ability to help the people in their communities get covered.   The Toolkit will help these groups do effective outreach and education. It will help them help people find out what kind of coverage they are eligible for.  It will help them help people enroll in the right kind of coverage—whether Medicaid, CHIP, or private insurance.  And, the Toolkit will help the groups help people use their insurance benefits.  Finally, community groups will have help engaging in systemic, community-based efforts for health reform.  Many children qualify for Medicaid or CHIP but are simply not enrolled.  It’s time to turn this around, so that when the rest of the family is eligible for affordable coverage, we are ready to help them enroll.

To get your Toolkit and learn about the “No Wrong Door” approach to enrolling children in health care coverage, come to our first Take Care Utah training session.  Save the date! June 20^th, 3:00-5:00 PM (space is limited!). Location given with RSVP to volunteer@healthpolicyproject.org

This training will include information about the Utah Medicaid personal information breach and how to direct people to helpful resources.

Upcoming training topics include:

• Personal Health Information Protocols and Tools (September)
• Training and Certification in the use of a new open source enrollment assistance database (developed in partnership with the Association of Utah Community Health).  Training and certification is needed to obtain a free and customizable copy of this relational ACCESS database now in use at UHPP and at Federally Qualified Health Centers around the state.

Almost 50,000 Utahns who buy health insurance in the individual market may get on average $30 back from their insurance company in 2012.  Another 47,632 who get insurance through a small employer* should get around $50 back.  And approximately 29,000 who are insured through a large employer* may get $36.  That’s because the Health Reform Law, known to some as “Obamacare” requires that insurance companies spend 80-85 cents of every premium dollar on medical claims, not administrative costs.  This is the “Medical Loss Ratio” rule.  Companies who don’t meet the requirement have to pay the money back to their policy holders!  For more information about the Medical Loss Ratio and the 2012 estimates of Insurer Rebates read the report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

*The group plan rebates may go to the employers, not employees.

Check out (and share) this video about how Federal Health Reform is already helping people:  http://vimeo.com/38942872

Since the Health Reform Law was passed in March of 2010:

• 21,016 Utah Medicare recipients saved over $12 million dollars on their medicines.
• 790,608 Utahns now receive coverage of preventive services like cancer screenings without co-payments or deductibles.
• 1,183,000 Utahns no longer face a lifetime cap on their insurance benefits.
• 21,247 more young adults up to age 26 in Utah are covered under their parents’ insurance.
• 696 Utahns are now covered through the pre-existing condition insurance plan.                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Source: www.healthcare.gov

See our new publication: The Affordable Care Act: What’s in it for the People of Utah?

If you are benefiting from Federal Health Reform (“Obamacare”) and want to share your story contact Shelly at (801) 433-2299 or shelly@healthpolicyproject.org

UHPP is thrilled to have Peter Smith volunteering in our office!  Peter graduated from the University of Utah last December with degrees in History and International Studies with a minor in Political Science.  Peter has a broad spectrum of interests and enjoys learning.  He makes every effort to expose himself to new ideas and viewpoints by listening to intellectual conversations on media like NPR and PBS and tries to give both sides of an issue fair consideration.  He’s even not afraid to admit when he is wrong!

After dealing with a serious health issue during college, Peter is eager to move on to new things in life. He is interning at UHPP to learn about the professional and policy environments, specifically how they relate to healthcare issues.  So far, he has learned many skills that will be transferable to his future career.   When he’s not busy being a rock-star UHPP volunteer, Peter enjoys hiking, weightlifting, watching basketball, and reading.

Save the Date!  Take Care Utah Toolkit Training
June 20^th, 3:00-5:00 PM (space is limited!).
Location given with RSVP to volunteer@healthpolicyproject.org
Read more about this in this month’s article.

Save the Date!  Better Care: Health Care that Works for All of Us (A Summit with National and local experts)
June 22 10:00-4:00 pm
Location given with RSVP to volunteer@healthpolicyproject.org
Space is limited/1^st come, 1^st served

Join us at the Better Care Summit as we fully imagine the possibilities for better care in Utah.
Let’s re-set the vision for better care at lower cost—accountable care— and learn about opportunities for better care in federal health reform law.  The summit will:

• Highlight better care at lower cost opportunities (thru payment and delivery system reforms) within the Affordable Care Act and beyond
• Define what “better care” means and what it looks like; Dr. Brent James of IHC, Renee Markus-Hodin of Community Catalyst
• Set the right vision for Utah Medicaid’s multi-year transition to payment and delivery system reform/accountable care;  Renee Markus-Hodin of Community Catalyst; Michealle Gady of FamiliesUSA
• Highlight better care opportunities within the Affordable Care Act
• Explore what better care looks like for different populations; Bill Henning of Disability Care Consortium; Renee Markus-Hodin of Community Catalyst; and TBD from CMS
• Demonstrate transparency tools like Utah Healthscape; Health Insight
• Examine wellness and patient incentives: learn what works and what doesn’t; Michealle Gady of Families USA

2012 Interim Session
2012 Interim Day dates:

• May 16
• June 20
• August 15
• September 19
• October 17
• November 14

2012 Health System Reform Task Force dates:

• May 17
• June 21
• August 16
• September 20
• October 18
• November 15

Medicaid Reform Leadership Team
Tuesday, May 22, 4:30-6:30 at AARP
6975 Union Park Center, Suite 320, Midvale, UT 84047
Phone: 866-448-3616

Sign on to this Community Sign On Letter Containing Recommendations for Addressing Medicaid Security Breach and Partnering with Community Based Organizations to Repair the Damages (click for instructions). The letter will go to officials at the Utah Department of Health and Technology Services, to the Attorney General’s Office, and to Senator Orrin Hatch.  To learn more about the Breach, read our article.  For more ways to help see below.

About 2 weeks ago computer hackers based in Eastern Europe gained access to a Utah Department of Technology Services (DTS) computer server that stores Medicaid and CHIP claims data and began removing personal information of enrollees and applicants. DTS detected the breach on April 2 and immediately shut down the server. All told, about 280,000 individuals had their social security numbers and other sensitive information (address, date of birth, medical procedure codes) stolen, and another 800,000 people in the process of making eligibility inquiries had their personal information stolen.

For details on what happened and why, see this recent Q & A from the Utah Department of Health.

We have heard from some of the families who’ve had their personal information stolen and they (or you) are understandably shocked, scared, and confused about what to do to protect their credit and identity—not just now but for years to come.

Our first priority as consumer advocates is to help the families repair the damage and protect their credit.  Whether the families have established credit or not and whether that credit is good or bad, the goal must be nothing less than to make sure this crisis does not interfere with families’ ability to establish or build good credit.

At the same time there are steps we must take to re-assure eligible but not enrolled individuals and families that it is safe (and important) to apply for Medicaid and CHIP. Whether due to stigma, barriers to enrollment (like the needless asset test), or fears about citizenship or immigration status, way too many eligible families have not applied for benefits—and then this happened!  Part of the problem is that the Medicaid and CHIP programs haven’t had much of a marketing budget to use to get the word out about these important programs. Because of the breach, we feel very strongly that Medicaid and CHIP now need a good-sized marketing budget and a robust marketing and communications strategy.

This is just one of several recommendations and requests we have developed with a group of advocates and consumer credit counselors.  We see the Utah Departments of Health and Technology working hard to protect clients from the damages resulting from the breach and to ensure something like this does not happen again.  Nevertheless, as agencies with ears to the ground in the community of individuals enrolled in or eligible for Medicaid and CHIP, we have very specific changes we want to propose to further our shared goals and rebuild trust in medical assistance programs.