In today’s recession, many of our families have to choose between food, clothing and  medical care for their children.  The arrival at the emergency department with a problem  that could have been treated more timely is not the best solution for our children’s  needs.  Based on concerns brought to the board from local pediatrician, Dr. Marty  Michaels, the Northwest Georgia Healthcare Partnership provided a solution to  address the problem of uninsured children in our area.  The solution was to provide  a child health advocate to assist families through the labyrinth of  Medicaid/PeachCare enrollmentby providing streamlined and convenient assistance.  

   With the support of our community, the Healthcare Partnership secured funding to provide a child health advocate who is assisting families through the enrollment and re-determination process of Medicaid/PeachCare.  The child health advocate initiative emulates our MedBank program started in 2002.  At that time, seniors were making  tough choices every day as to whether to buy food and gas or their medicines.  We know that in the last five years, $10 million in prescription medications have been provided to people in Whitfield and Murray Counties.  In 2005 MedBank became a program of our local county health departments.  

   Since December 2008, 924 children were enrolled in Medicaid or PeachCare  benefits through the child health advocate.  These children were uninsured prior to that time.  Our child health advocate is bi-lingual and able to assist English and Spanish-speaking families.  The Healthcare Partnership also established a system to aid our child health advocate in managing caseloads and organizing data.  Our child health advocate has built relations with area businesses, schools, physicians and other agencies that are aware of those in need of these services.  Through these relationships, our child health advocate is able to assist many of those qualifying families that are under-served or uninsured. 

    An article in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics, tells us that communities save $2,394 for every child that they insure or keep insured.  Based on their research, just these 924 children have saved our community $2,212,056.  Reyna Peinado currently holds the child health advocate position and can be contacted at (706) 272-6630.