Children’s health status and their family’s financial status can suffer when they lose their insurance coverage for a period of time before they re-enroll. Children who “churn” on and off of coverage are less likely to receive check-ups and immunizations, and their parents may incur high medical bills when they are uninsured. To better understand how to keep children seamlessly enrolled, PCCY conducted phone interviews with 51 parents we initially helped apply for Medical Assistance for their children. Overall, we found that many parents did not understand the renewal process and, therefore, experienced some difficulty keeping their children continuously enrolled.

Read our recommendations to prevent churning in our 2011 paper: Reducing Children’s MA Churning: Policy Recommendations from the Parent’s Eye View.

It is encouraging to note that some of the strategies we suggested have since been adopted. The Pennsylvania office that operates Medicaid, for example, is working more closely with its contracted health plans to prevent lapses in coverage. Further, the Affordable Care Act now calls for renewing coverage once a year when Pennsylvania state government had previously required recipients to renew twice a year.