West Virginia CHIP Program to Give Provider Bonuses, Encourage Enrollment Before Federal Funding Expires

As part of a fall incentive campaign, West Virginia's CHIP program will pay physicians and dentists 25% more for routine visits and preventive treatments for children from now until Sept. 20, the Charleston Gazette reports. The goals of the campaign are threefold: to enroll more dentists in CHIP; to encourage parents to seek check-ups for their kids before school begins in the fall; and to spend some of the federal CHIP funding set to expire at the end of the fiscal year. According to state CHIP Program Director Sharon Carte, West Virginia must spend the remaining $10 million from its 1998 CHIP funding allocation by the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30 or return the funds to the federal government for redistribution among states. Having enrolled 22,000 of the 28,000 state children believed to be eligible for CHIP, the program "will need all the money it will receive in future years," she said. Should the state have to return the $10 million, Carte anticipates only getting $5 million of it back through a process the federal government uses to redistribute unspent funds. Last year, the state returned $12 million in unspent CHIP funds, receiving $9 million through redistribution. Since then, state CHIP organizers have run a television ad campaign and given the West Virginia Healthy Kids Coalition $50,000 for outreach campaigns, which have included free backpack distribution to school districts and volunteers going door-to-door with applications. But the state is now focused on "trying not to lose kids who have been enrolled for a year" -- currently only half of the children whose CHIP cards will expire this year are renewed for 2002 (Miller, Charleston Gazette, 7/24). For further information on state health policy in West Virginia, visit State Health Facts Online.