Kids Connection
...Health Care Coverage for Nebraska Children
Nebraksa Health and Human Services System
January 02, 2008
Kids Connection is a new state children’s health insurance program (SCHIP) being developed as an extension of Medicaid in Nebraska. Its purpose is to provide health care to low-income uninsured children all across the state.
What’s at stake?
Over the next five years, $15 million in new federal dollars
through Title XXI of the Social Security Act and $5.5 million
dollars in matching state money will be made available annually to
fund Kids Connection.
An estimated 24,000 Nebraska children under 19 who are at or below 185% of the poverty level do not have health insurance.
Recommendations for Nebraska’s Children’s Health Insurance Program:
- Medicaid coverage will be raised to 185% of the current poverty level for all children ages 0 through 18.
- Twelve months of continuous eligibility for Title XIX and Title XXI recipients.
- Expansion of the existing Medicaid Eligibility/Enrollment system.
What are the benefits of the program?
- Improve the access and continuity of care for Medicaid recipients.
- Establish a consistent medical home that focuses on preventive care.
- Improve provider willingness to accept Medicaid clients by reducing administrative burden and decreasing the amount of unreimbursed care.
- Reduces state administrative burden to establish eligibility.
- Improves Medicaid’s goal of easier and faster enrollment/eligibility process.
How physicians can become providers:
Kids Connection is proposed to be an extension of Title XIX
Medicaid, making Medicaid providers automatically eligible to
provide these health care services. If the physician is in
Lancaster, Douglas or Sarpy Counties, Kids Connection
will be part of the Nebraska Health Connection – the Medicaid
Managed Program.
For more information, contact:
Nebraska Department of Health & Human Services Finance &
Support
P.O. Box 95026
Lincoln, NE 68509-5026
Phone: (402) 471-8845
E-mail: deb.scherer@hhss.ne.gov
Or visit the web site at: http://www.hhs.state.ne.us/med/kidsconx.htm
