Barriers to Medicaid Enrollment: A Study of the Texas Healthy Kids Corporation

Barlow, Daphne J., Barriers to Medicaid Enrollment: A Study of the Texas Healthy Kids Corporation. Masters of Public Health (Health Administration), December, 2000, 38 pp., 18 tables, References, 13 titles. Recently Medicaid eligibility was expanded to include more children than ever before in Texas. However, many Medicaid eligible families have not obtained benefits. This study concerns potentially Medicaid eligible families who applied to the Texas Health Kids Corporation. A random telephone survey of these applicants examined the outcome of Medicaid eligibility notification. Data was analyzed to determine the predictors of attempting or completing an application. No significant sensitivity to profilers such as primary language, race/ethnicity, education level or age was detected. Instead, having prior knowledge of Medicaid eligibility and being female were predictive factors to consider when engineering outreach programs. While these results indicated a statistical significance, further study of repeat notification and gender in order to conclusively recommend policy change. These results have implicated for the Texas CHIP program.