BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KERO) — Expanding Medi-Cal outreach in Kern County is the goal at the forefront of the county Department of Human Services' Medi-Cal Health Enrollment Navigator Project. In the last week of April, the Kern County Board of Supervisors approved an agreement between DHS and the Community Action Partnership of Kern to continue work on the project.
This comes as the Department of Health Care Services is receiving an additional $60 million to provide funding to counties and community-based organizations, such as CAP-K, across the state.
"For what's happened in the last couple of years it's been important, with all of the pauses in enrollment and the need for updated information now with them establishing their normal functioning applications, now we are having to step up and assist," said Advocacy and Public Relations Manager for CAP-K Savannah Maldonado.
According to the California Health and Human Services Agency, in February of 2023, more than 100,000 women ages 19 to 44 and more than 82,000 men in the same age range in Kern County were certified as eligible for Medi-Cal.
Maldonado says CAP-K has a handful of outreach tactics that they've completed and plan to continue now that they've received the green light from the board of supervisors to do so.
"We've done social media campaigns, we've done flyers throughout our food bank, and reaching out to the communities where we have our 150 distribution pantries and commodity sites and giving the flyers out through there," said Maldonado. "We also have billboards, GETBus signs. If you're driving through town, you can see those that are going up."
The Department of Health Care Services identified 12 priority target populations for health navigation efforts, some of which include people with mental health disorders, those suffering from addiction, and also low-wage workers and their families or dependents.
Jana Slagle, public information officer for the Department of Human Services, says the efforts don't stop there.
"Also, through people that are coming out of being incarcerated, those folks, we're trying to reach them to make sure that they also know this is an option for them. Medi-Cal is now even available for folks that are seniors, which now the age is 50. That includes a lot more people," said Slagle. "We hope they take advantage of that."
Maldonado says the collaboration with the county will now continue through June of 2024 and says assistance for the community is much more accessible than one may think, whether that be help with applying for or renewing with Medi-Cal.
"If you're in that basic idea of understanding that you qualify for services, call," said Maldonado. "We'll assist through these times where we're a little bit more uncertain with inflation costs and other things that are arising in the community. It could help you out in your circumstances that you are in now."
For more information about your eligibility for Medi-Cal or if you would like more details or help with renewing your current Medi-Cal enrollment, you can either call CAP-K at 2-1-1, or visit the Kern County Department of Human Service's Medi-Cal application website.
