Uninsured Children's Outreach Campaign Gets $89.5M Support
The California Department of Health Services is earmarking $89.5 million over three-and-a-half years for a multi-pronged education and outreach effort to promote the availability of comprehensive health benefits for low-income uninsured children throughout California.
The massive contract has been awarded to two PR agencies with extensive healthcare expertise: Runyon Saltzman & Einhom and Hill and Knowlton. The decision-maker for these two agencies was the account work they do for Medi-Cal managed care programs and prenatal care low-income women, according to State Health Director Kim Belshe.
The effort, "Healthy Families Program" will begin in mid-February and continue through June 2001 and will target children within working families whose income will not qualify them for Medi-Cal benefits or allow them to purchase private insurance.
Outreach will involve working at the community level with grassroots organizations and sponsorships with private industry and traditional media relations and advertising to the campaign's target. The initiative will include:
- Coverage for hospitalization, physician, medical and surgical services as well as prescription drugs, preventive "well-baby, well-child" services, mental health services and dental benefits.
- Affordable monthly premiums for participants, ranging from $7 to $27 monthly.
- Co-payments at $5 for most outpatient services (an annual cap of $250 has been established).
- Additional outreach and educational awareness for the department's "BabyCal" program, which focuses on educating high-risk women on the importance of prenatal care. (California Department of Health Services, Ken August, 916/657-3064)
Gun Violence is Top Health Priority for Physicians
American physicians are up in arms about gun violence and believe it requires aggressive outreach campaigns to the medical community and the general public. According to a recent national survey of members of the American College of Physicians and American College of Surgeons, 94% of internists and 87% of surgeons believe that gun violence is a major public health issue in the U.S.
Physicians surveyed said they would like to be better educated about gun violence so they could provide more counseling to their patients on the subject.
To increase the medical community's involvement in this area, the ACP has adopted five new positions to bolster its advocacy role. They include:
- Gun violence and firearm-related injury prevention becoming high priorities on public health agendas for healthcare organizations.
- Training internists in firearm injury prevention and preparing them to educate patients in their communities on the dangers of firearm ownership.
- Enacting legislation to "ban the sale, possession and manufacture for civilian use of all automatic and semi-automatic assault weapons."(American College of Physicians, 1-800-523-1546, http://www.acponline.org)
HPRMN Awards to be Announced at Industry Conference
Recipients of Healthcare PR & Marketing News' second annual "Best Marketing" and "Best PR" campaigns will be announced at the Third National Forum on Customer-Based Marketing Strategies in Phoenix on May 3-5, 1998. (Entry forms are enclosed in this issue, the deadline is March 18.)
More than 300 senior marketers and planners from hospitals, health plans, managed care organizations and insurers are expected to attend.
The forum will offer 34 concurrent sessions on key industry topics that include market-driven strategy, getting and keeping customers, segmentation, branding and marketing technology. HPRMN subscribers qualify for $100 discount on early registration fees.
For more information, contact the Forum at 1-888-869-8482, ext. 23 or email: [email protected].