Tens of Thousands of Philadelphia Children are Without Health Insurance Coverage
(Philadelphia, PA) March 21, 2012 – After 1,400 free vision screenings – and 600 Philadelphia children fitted for free eyeglasses! – last year’s “Give Kids Sight Day” was an unqualified success. With tens of thousands of city kids without health insurance coverage, however, this year’s day of free eye care (April 14, 8:30am, Jefferson Hospital Alumni Hall) will have an additional focus: making sure parents understand that insurance is available for all children and that vision services too are covered by the available public health plans (Medical Assistance and CHIP).
Approximately 26,000 Philadelphia children are uninsured, yet as many as 75 percent of these kids are likely to be eligible, according to Colleen McCauley, Health Policy Director for Public Citizens for Children and Youth. “Some parents are unaware that public health insurance exists and that their children are eligible.” The reasons are varied, she explains, noting that, “faced with a job loss eliminating employer-paid health coverage, many families are using the public safety net for the first time and do not know that public health insurance even exists.” Families recently moving into Pennsylvania from other states are unaware as well, she adds.
Immigrant families, who, along with teenagers are disproportionately uninsured, face additional barriers such as language, cultural differences and confusion over immigration status. “Only the child’s status matters,” McCauley stresses. “A parent’s status does not affect the ability for their children to get public health insurance coverage.”
PCCY conducted a survey* at the last ‘Sight Day’ revealing that a majority of parents with children enrolled in MA and CHIP did not know what their eye care benefits covered: 63 percent of MA and 70 percent of CHIP parents understood the plans covered their child’s eye exams. Yet, just 52 percent (MA) and 60 percent (CHIP) knew their child’s eyeglasses were paid for by insurance.
Nearly half the parents surveyed (44 percent) reported their child needed replacement glasses in the past. But half of these parents got their child’s replacement glasses at ‘Sight Day’ – unnecessary McCauley points out, since MA covers replacement glasses and CHIP pays for replacement lenses (but not frames). Compounding the lack of clarity with the public health insurance plans, PCCY followed up with several vision care providers (opticians, optometrists), discovering that very few were able to accurately describe MA and CHIP eye care benefits.
“Some families are being misinformed by the very people who are being contracted to render services to them,” McCauley states. “Therefore the emphasis at this year’s ‘Sight Day’ is on educating parents. We have to do a better job of informing parents about what their children’s eye care benefits cover and make it easier to access these benefits as well.”