System for Using School Lunch Applications for Medicaid/CHIP Enrollment Needs Improvement, Study Finds

During the 1999-2000 school year, a majority of state child nutrition agencies issued applications or waivers to local school districts designed to disclose children's school lunch eligibility information to the state to enable the identification of Medicaid- and CHIP-eligible children, but state nutrition directors gave the effectiveness of these applications "mixed reviews," according to a recent study. In 1998, the USDA issued a memorandum stating that information obtained from a child's application for the free or reduced lunch program could be shared with a state's Medicaid and/or CHIP programs if parental consent was obtained. To assist in the effort to obtain consent, the USDA developed "several prototype forms" available as either "a check-box on a multi-use school lunch application or as a separate waiver form that can be attached to the application." Supported by the Covering Kids initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities conducted a survey of state child nutrition directors in the 50 states and the District of Columbia to test both the use and efficacy of this system. Some of the study findings are presented below:

State child nutrition agencies in 32 states and the District of Columbia issued the multi-use school lunch application or waiver in the 1999-2000 school year. Seventeen of these states said they also included a "cover letter encouraging school districts to use these materials or provided instructions on how to use them or both."
"Most" of the 18 states that did not use a multi-use application or waiver "employed other methods" for informing parents about low-cost children's health insurance.
State child nutrition directors gave the effectiveness of the waiver and application "mixed reviews," and many said they "were not familiar with the methods being used to transfer information from the school lunch application to the Medicaid or CHIP agency."
The state nutrition directors also said that the "key" to successful implementation of the waiver and/or application is a "strong partnership among relevant state agencies," while the "greatest obstacles" were "inadequate availability of school staff to implement procedures and a lack of clear procedures" for processing the forms.

Discussing these findings, the report states that "closer collaboration among child nutrition and children's health insurance agencies" is needed at the state and local levels. In addition, the "technical challenges" involving the transfer of information should be reviewed and overcome. In addition, the report said that states should respect the importance of the school lunch program in itself to "foster collaboration" with state agencies that administer Medicaid and CHIP coverage. The report concludes: "Efforts to streamline the school lunch data transfer process, combined with continued efforts to simplify Medicaid and CHIP enrollment procedures, are key to advancing systems for reducing the number of uninsured children" (Ross, Enrolling Children In Health Coverage: It Can Start With School Lunch, January 2001). To download the full report, go to http://www.cbpp.org/1-1-01health.pdf. Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view this report. This is part of the Morning Briefing, a summary of health policy coverage from major news organizations. Sign up for an email subscription.

System for Using School Lunch Applications for Medicaid/CHIP Enrollment Needs Improvement, Study Finds

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