HEALTH STUDIES
Reports | Testimony | Archives
Reports
Cornerstone for Coverage: Towards a Universal Health Plan for New York (PDF).
December 2007.
Families and individuals across the country want access to affordable health care. In New York, 2.5 million adults, including 415,000 children have no health insurance, leaving many New Yorkers, particularly those with low-income, delaying or postponing health care. The CSS proposal, Cornerstone for Coverage includes comprehensive benefits including in-patient and out-patient hospitalization, primary and preventive care, family cost-sharing and rates. The proposal also includes emergency services, prescription drugs, dental and vision, durable medical equipment, reproductive health services and behavioral health and substance abuse treatments.
Raising Women’s Voices for the Health Care We Need Webinar (PDF). October 2007. By Elisabeth Ryden Benjamin and Arianne Garza.
Partnership for Universal Health Coverage Hearing (PDF). October 2007. By Elisabeth Ryden Benjamin and Arianne Garza.
Letter to State Health Officials to extend eligibility under the SCHIP program (PDF). August 2007. By David R. Jones and Elisabeth Ryden Benjamin.
Low Income Consumers’
Experiences: Results from a Citywide Survey of Managed Care Consumers
in Medicaid, Child Health Plus, and Family Health Plus (PDF).
February 2005.
The Community Health Access Department conducted a survey designed
to gain insight into how managed care is working for low-income
families enrolled in New York’s public health coverage programs
(Medicaid, Child Health Plus and Family Health Plus). Highlights
included the high level of satisfaction with primary care within
the managed care system; the challenges faced by immigrants in
accessing health care; and the need to identify priorities for
improving the experience of low-income consumers in managed care.
Federal
Medicaid Reform: What’s at Risk for New York (PDF). June
2003 Policy Brief. By Denise Soffel.
Medicaid is the single largest source of health care spending
in the United States. It is a large and complex program, and one
that had provided states with enormous latitude in the design
and operation of their programs. The open-ended nature of Medicaid
as an entitlement program has allowed states to be generous in
their programs because of the guarantee of a federal match for
whatever expenditures a state generates. While the program is
designed with a core component of populations that must be covered
and services that must be provided, many of the components of
Medicaid are optional, and it is left to each state to determine
what its program will look like.
Lost
in the Medicaid Maze: Voices From the Frontlines of New York City’s
Public Insurance Programs (PDF). January 2003. Report of the
New York City Task Force on Medicaid Managed Care. By Kirsten L.
Aspengren, Denise Soffel and David C. Wunsch.
Voices From the Frontlines of New York City’s Public Insurance
Programs
Patterns
of Primary Care Utilization: A Survey of Community Residents in
Bedford-Stuyvesant (PDF). November 2002.
The principal goal of this project was to profile the care-seeking
behavior of residents of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.
We wanted to learn how patient characteristics influence whether
people have a health care home and where they seek primary care.
We also wanted to identify the attributes of primary care settings
that influence choices and preferences in where people seek primary
care. Finally, we examined the relationship between having a regular
source of care, the characteristics of the regular source of care,
and continued reliance on emergency departments.
Health Care Resource Guide
Diane Wenzler, Public Benefits Resource Center, 2002
This guide is a comprehensive manual on available health care
information, protections and resources. Over 100 pages of information
including a description of government health programs, what to
consider when purchasing a commercial policy, consumer protections
under COBRA and HIPAA, an explanation of managed care under Medicare,
Medicaid and private policies, resources for prescription coverage,
home care services, a glossary of health care and insurance terms,
informative web sites and more.
The
Advocate’s Guide to Managed Health Care
Community Service Society of New York, Managed Care Consumer Assistance
Program, July 2001.
The Advocate’s Guide to Managed Health Care is a comprehensive
guide on all forms of managed care including Medicaid managed
care, Medicare managed care, Child Health Plus, and commercial
managed care. The Guide is intended to serve as a desk reference
with detailed table of contents and easy-reference indices to
help you find the information you’re looking for.
Medicaid,
Child Health Plus, and Family Health Plus: Attaining Administrative
Simplicity (PDF). Denise Soffel, June 2001
New York State has a large and growing number of people without
health insurance. As many as one-third of these people are eligible
for one of New York’s publicly funded health programs: Medicaid,
Child Health Plus, and Family Health Plus. These desperately needed
programs cannot operate as intended, however, until New York State
addresses the many administrative barriers that exist in the Medicaid
application process. This issue brief reviews the application
and eligibility determination process in New York, and presents
a series of recommendations for streamlining and simplifying the
process. Recommendations include eliminating the asset test for
Medicaid; allowing the self-reporting of income; eliminating unnecessary
documentation requirements; and eliminating face-to-face interviews
and extending the eligibility period for recertification.
Health Care: An Unmet Need
in New York's Low-Income Neighborhoods
Denise Soffel, May 2000
Good health requires having enough primary care physicians to
meet people's needs. The gap between the number needed and the
number available remains large. This CSS issue brief reports on
results of a street canvas of primary care physicians in 9 low-income
communities during 1998. A key finding was that over 300 new primary
care physicians are needed immediately for underserved communities,
with 1.75 million New Yorkers, a surprising finding in light of
the nation-wide and NYC physician surplus.
The Changing Face of Primary Care in New York’s Low-Income
Communities
Denise Soffel, Ph.D., with Natashya Fraser and Jagruti Patel, January
2000
Many of New York's low-income neighborhoods have a shortage of
primary care physicians. And those providers who are there are
often inaccessible due to the hours they are open, their policies
on accepting patients without insurance or on Medicaid, or because
the physicians do not have the language capacity to care for New
York's ethnic and immigrant communities. This CSS report presents
results of a street canvas of primary care physicians in 9 low-income
communities during 1998. The study found a primary care delivery
system unable to meet the health needs of the over 1.75 million
people who live in these neighborhoods; an on-going shortage of
primary care providers; continued reliance on hospital out-patient
departments for primary care; and significant barriers to access
to health care.
Testimony
The Partnership for Universal Health Coverage Hearings Before Governor Eliot Spitzer, The New York State Department of Health, & The New York State Department of Insurance. Glens Falls, New York. (PDF) (September 5, 2007)
Testimony of Elisabeth Ryden Benjamin, Director, Healthcare Restructuring Initiatives. Community Service Society.
Getting
New York City’s Fair Share: State Medicaid and Health Cuts
(PDF) (April 28, 2003)
Testimony of Denise Soffel, Ph. D. at the Hearing of the New
York City Council Committees on Health; Mental Health, Mental
Retardation, Alcoholism, Drug Abuse & Disability Services;
and State and Federal Legislation
Disaster Relief Medicaid (December 3, 2001)
Testimony of David R. Jones at the hearing of the NYS Assembly
Committee on Health
Archives
Re-Envisioning Our Public Hospital
System
Denise Soffel, July 1997
NY's Health and Hospitals Corporation (HHC) is the largest public
hospital system in the country and represents one of the largest
health systems, public or private, in the NY metropolitan area.
Yet its survival may depend on how well it adapts to the changing
realities of managed health care. This issue brief describes the
unique role of HHC in the health care delivery system in New York
City, and outlines a series of recommendations for strengthening
is operations.
Your Health Plan Handbook: How to Get the Health Care Your
Family Needs from a Managed Care Plan
Community Service Society of New York, 1997.
Covers basic information on Medicaid managed care: what it is,
how it differs from traditional Medicaid, how to choose a plan,
consumer rights within managed care, and how to register complaints
with the City and the State if problems arise.
Knowledge Gap: What Medicaid Beneficiaries Understand –
And What They Don’t – About Managed Care. A Survey of
Medicaid Recipients in the South Bronx and Harlem
Christine Molnar, M.S., Denise Soffel, Ph.D., and Wendy Brandes,
J.D. 1996.
Knowledge Gap reports on a survey of 421 Medicaid beneficiaries,
of whom 44 percent were enrolled in a managed care plan. The report
documents how little Medicaid beneficiaries understand managed
care; explores how patients currently obtain health care; and
highlights use patterns that create problems within managed care.
The principal recommendation is improved education to ensure Medicaid
beneficiaries have better access to high quality, coordinated
health care within managed care.
Health and Health Care Profile of New York City’s New
School Admissions, 1990-1991
Minh Ly Griffin. 1993. 106 pages.
Building Primary Health Care in New York City’s Low-Income
Communities
Christel Brellochs and Anjean B Carter, CSS; Barbara Caress and
Amy Goldman, Consultants. 1990. 80 pages
Barriers to Prenatal Care: An Examination of Use of Prenatal
Care Among Low-Income Women in New York City
Francis G Caro, Ph.D., Eleanor Marshall, and Anjean B Carter, CSS;
Debra Kalmuss, Ph.D. and Katherine Fennelly, Ph.D., Center for Population
and Family Health, Columbia University; Iris Lopez, Ph.D., Anthropology,
City College, CUNY. 1988. Twelve Health Center Districts in Need: A Birth Atlas
Constance T Gager, with the assistance of Christel Brellochs, Terry
J Rosenberg, and Judy Wessler. 1988. 161 pages. |
