Santa Clara County Childrens Health Initiative Outreach and Enrollment Efforts Are Effective and Helpful to Parents

The Santa Clara County Children’s Health Initiative (CHI) is an innovative effort to expand children’s health insurance coverage. Outreach and application assistance for Medi-Cal, Healthy Families, and Healthy Kids-three health insurance programs available to children in families with incomes under 300 percent of the federal poverty level- are major components. This issue brief examines outreach and enrollment efforts, focusing on parents’ perceptions of the processes involved. Findings show that parents express consistently positive opinions about the outreach, application, and renewal stages, regardless of where they heard about the program or where they applied.