Department of Health and Human Resources Story Archives - Page 15 of 16

Health Care Glitch Affects 18,000 W.Va. Residents

A state official says a glitch in the federal health insurance marketplace has affected about 18,000 West Virginians trying to sign up for coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

Jeremiah Samples of the state Department of Health and Human Resources tells the Charleston Gazette the federal exchange is having problems transferring account information to and from West Virginia’s system. He says some other states are having the same problem.

About 10,000 residents whose accounts should have been transferred because they’re eligible for Medicaid will have to sign up again, this time with the state. And about 8,000 residents who tried to sign up for Medicaid but were found to be ineligible now must go to the federal exchange if they want insurance because their information also was not transferred.

State DHHR Plans Changes to Address Issues

Changes are in the works at the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources in response to an audit that found the agency is inefficient.

     DHHR Secretary Karen Bowling plans to break the agency into three divisions covering human services, health services, and insurance and strategic planning. Each division would oversee several bureaus within the agency. Deputy secretaries would be appointed to lead the divisions.

     The Charleston Daily Mail reports that Bowling outlined the plan Monday during a legislative interim committee meeting.

     Bowling told lawmakers that the plan would give bureau heads more time to deal with their offices’ day-to-day workings.

     The audit by consulting firm Public Works found that the DHHR wastes millions of dollars and has a high turnover rate.

State DHHR Plans Changes to Address Issues

Can West Virginia's Laid Off Coal Miners Find New Careers?

Some miners are looking for new occupations because they worry this current down swing in coal production won’t be an ordinary ‘bust’. Workforce West Virginia is reporting that more than 4,200 West Virginia coal miners have lost their jobs since March 2012. Although mining jobs were created during that same, the agency couldn’t quantify the number.

In March of 2012, the bureau of labor statistics forecasts that coal mining would decline between 2010-2020, saying that support activities for mining is projected to experience little or no growth. The bureau said declining employment in these industries is mainly attributable to technology advancements that boost worker productivity.

More than 700 West Virginia coal miners are expected to lose their jobs by the end of this year and many them are being forced to find new occupations.

What other types of work are displaced miners looking for?

Commercial Freight/Truck Driver
Welder
Health Care Technician
HVAC Repair Technician
Diesel Technology and Chemical Processing
Electrical Engineer
Robotics Technology Operator

Federal and state dollars are helping to pay for these types of retraining programs.

"Their first hope is they’re going to get called back to their job or get another mining job and the reality may be that it won’t happen," said Brett Dillon, Director of United Mine Workers of America Career Center in Beckley.

What groups are offering help for retraining?

The state just wrapped up a series of ‘rapid response’ meetings which are designed to help miners sign up for unemployment benefits and learn more about various training options.

The West Virginia Division of Rehabilitation Services which is offering $6,000 towards retraining for miners who qualify. This is reserved for miners with conditions like diabetes, ADD, ADHD, etc.
The US Department of Labor awarded the Coal Mining National Emergency Grant to West Virginia. Workforce West Virginia is administering the $1.8 million emergency grant awarded in late June 2012. Up to $5,000 is available for miners and their family members for classroom occupational skills training.
Coal Mining National Emergency Grant also provides money for travel, child care, gas, food at the rate of $20 per day for the days attending class up to $100 per week

UMWA Career Center partners with several of the community colleges and universities throughout the region including New River, and Southern Community and Technical College, and The Robert C. Byrd Institute (RCBI) to offer training in different occupations. RCBI has created an individual program designed specifically for coal miners. The school is working to condense a two year Associate’s Degree in robotics technology into a 9-month training program.

Retaining takes some encouragement

Robert Lafever recently lost his job driving a coal truck. The Clay County resident started work in the coal business in 1980.

“They sent me papers to come up to get retrained,” Lafever said, “so I wanted to see what they got to offer.”

“They’re devastated because they just lost a good paying job. One of the best paying jobs in West Virginia,” Dillon said.

He said every miner to reach out for some form of retraining.

“I tell them that, while they’re drawing unemployment, don’t sit on the couch watching TV, go ahead and get some training,” he said. “Maybe you’ll get called back to the mines. Maybe you’ll get another mining job. You may not need this training.”

But Dillon said some miners are worried a lack of experience elsewhere tends to be discouraging.

“What I tell the guys when they say, ‘all I’ve ever done is coal mining. I can’t do nothing else,’ well the first thing I say is ‘that’s bull’,” Dillon said.

“’You have been a coal miner for a number of years and coal miners are very resourceful you can call a lot of them ‘MacGyvers.’”

State Medicaid numbers up since expansion

While state officials say they’re not sure how many West Virginians have signed up for private health insurance under the Affordable Care Act last week, more than 50,000 are now covered by Medicaid under the state’s expansion of the program.Those numbers come from just the first week of enrollment under the ACA’s health care exchange.

Department of Health and Human Resources Assistant Secretary Jeremiah Samples said the state does not yet have access to the number of West Virginians who have signed up for health coverage through the federal exchange, but 1,932 people have signed up for Medicaid through the state internet portal called inRoads.

Another 47,752 West Virginians found they were eligible for Medicaid by visiting their county DHHR offices and signing up in person.

Samples said last week more than 45,000 people were enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program before the exchange opened through auto enrollment letters sent out and returned to the DHHR.

That puts the number of West Virginians newly enrolled in Medcaid at nearly 100,000, Samples said exceeding the state’s expectations for the first week.

W.Va. health exchange enrollment numbers expected next week

After an influx on inquiries in the first 24 hours of the health care exchange, an official at the state Department of Health and Human Resources says the federal government is working to fix bugs and increase capacity both online and at their national call center.
Assistant to the Secretary at the DHHR Jeremiah Samples said Thursday the federal government did experience some technical issues in the first 24 hours of the online exchange. He accounted the issues to the large number of Americans looking for information about health care coverage.

“The feds are saying they’ve had 7 million independent hits from across the country on the federal exchange itself,” Samples said, but added they’ve worked to increase capacity on the site to account for the numbers.

As for the federal call center, a second option for people looking to sign up for health coverage, Samples said the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services received more than 295,000 calls the first day, but have also added phones lines to decrease the wait time.

“The first day we were hearing wait times as long as a half an hour,” he said, “and they’re saying that the wait times at the call center have been cut in half since the launch, especially over the last 24 hours.”

As far as the number of West Virginians who have taken advantage of the exchange, the state won’t receive those numbers until early next week, but Samples could say a majority of people using in-person assistors at county DHHR offices are of lower incomes and find they are eligible for Medicaid under the state’s program expansion.

“That’s probably because there’s more experience in that low income population dealing with the DHHR offices,” he said.

As for the large number of not just West Virginians, but Americans who have shown interest in the health care marketplace, Samples said he’s not surprised about the surge in interest.

“We anticipated that there would be three major rushes to assess what coverage was available by the public, Samples said. “Here October 1st. We also anticipate around January 1 because that’s when the coverage actually begins and then towards March 31 toward the end of the open enrollment period.”

He based that assessment on the annual trend the DHHR sees during open enrollment for Medicaid.