This document discusses strategies for engaging government entities to promote health insurance enrollment. It recommends securing partnerships with elected officials, government agencies, and community coalitions to expand outreach. Specific tactics include having officials hold enrollment events, engaging places of faith and celebrities as champions, and collaborating with various city agencies. Partnering across different levels of government and organizations can help institutionalize best practices and reach remaining uninsured populations.

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Engaging Government:
Securing Earned Media, Finding the Uninsured and More!

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1. Background Summary
2. Why Engage Government?
3. Health Department Strategies
4. Power of Community Coalitions
5. Panelist Questions & Answers
6. Brainstorm Next Steps
Agenda

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So why engage government?
Let’s Set the Stage…
• Media interest is challenging — find new
“hooks”
• Institutionalize - Make our best
practices “evergreen”
• Reach remaining target uninsured
populations — who are they?

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Graciela Guzman, Chair
Chicago Affordable Care Act Consortium
Gregg Ross, Public Affairs Specialist
U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
Kai Tao, Deputy Commissioner & Chief Program Officer
Chicago Department of Public Health
The Team-Presenters

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Best Practices from a Large City Entity
Chicago Department of Public
Health (CDPH) Strategies

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Start with City Council
Step #1: Engage Elected Officials
• Direct Liaison with city council ward members

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STEP #2: Who Do You Know
#1: Insurance access is relevant to almost
everybody-ask federal, state, city and local
officials to hold events
3#: Pastors/Leaders for Places of Faith: engage
churches, temples, synagogues
#2: Stars & Celebrities: Da’ Bulls

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• Business Affairs & Consumer Protection- tabling
with taxi drivers
• Chicago Public Libraries/City colleges-put GCI
connector widget on home page
• Cultural Affairs and Special Events-Town Hall
event for artists/musicians (flu shots)
• 311- hold queue plays auto GCI message
• EMS- flyers for all ambulance users
• Police- CAPs meetings, 145 beat meetings/month
• Sanitarians- flyers with all inspections
Click To Edit
Master Text
Styles
• Third level
Step 3: Connect with City Agencies

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1. Mayor’s Office
2. Health Department
3. Identify Champions who are
decision makers; providers of
underserve patients are also
natural champions.
4. Start with a general survey which
will solicit interest and provide a
soft introduction to EA work with
gov’t agencies.
Step #4: Where Do You Start?

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1. Show up at meetings, ask for what you need,
follow up with timely emails, provide canned
scripts/templates/toolkits to ease any burden.
2. Work with your coalition/consortium. Make it easy
to for them to reach you, this sets the baseline
and tone for future communications.
3. Host or join any community based
consortium/coalition. They are your backbone.
4. Sit down with federal partners at HHS and divide
the work ( e.g. IL State could focus on other parts
outside of Chicago). Minimal resources, delegate
and conquer.
5. Be bold and ASK
EASY WINS ANYONE CAN DO

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Graciela Guzman
Chair, Chicago Affordable Care Act Consortium
Enrollment Coordinator, Patient Innovation Center
Power of Community Coalitions:
Boots on the Ground

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Chicago ACA Consortium
55 partner
organizations
82 individual
stakeholders
11 languages spoken
3 assister programs:
Navigator, IPC, and CAC
12 FQHC and 5
Hospital Partners
35 Community
Organizations
3 Tiers of Government
8 National, State,
Local Healthcare
Advocates
Stakeholder Partner Profile

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Life Before OE 3 Partnerships: Barking Up the Wrong Tree
• ”trying way too hard for little outcome”
• “never figured out how the right ask”
• “too many asks going at the same time”
• no real conversation about big needs and
influencers
• a lot of complaining, headache, heartache
and spinning of the wheels
• culture of “why bother” among agencies

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Facilitating New Assister Partnerships for OE 4
OE 3: Coalition-Activated Government Engagement
U.S. Department of Housing & Urban Development
and Chicago Housing Authority
• Emails to all residents
• Training of resident advisors
Uniform Messaging for Consumers and Earned Media
• Everyone used one website and one call-in number for scheduling appointments
• All parties agreed on one “message frame”
• Leveraged HHS political relationships for earned media
Expansion of City-Sponsored Opportunities for Assisters
• Assisters present at Aldermen Flu shot days
• Assisters present at Chicago-run city colleges
• Assisters included in city events and opportunities for hard-to-enroll communities.

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Lessons Learned in OE3:
Takeaway Lessons for Successful Engagements
• Don’t Be Afraid to Ask: Many times, offices have not been approached because
we assume “somebody already did.” An ask is always appreciated and a great
opportunity for quick check-ins and project-specific buy-in.
• Prepare Concrete Asks: Come prepared with specific actions that government
agencies can take and different levels of asks. Examples: add the scheduler link to
their website, include enrollment information in services “intake” forms, etc.
• Successful Engagement is a Two Way Street: Aim to find needs your local
government has from assisters and offer to help. Communicate on outcomes often.
Be timely and attentive to goals set together and be accountable for promises.

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Pursued engagement with Chicago Department of Public Health
Lessons in Practice: Making the Ask
Ask: Assister entry into City Colleges for high-traffic consumer enrollment:
Sub-ask: Tabling during student open houses and registration days
Outcomes: direct contact to Associate Vice Chancellor, Chicago City Colleges;
invitation to open house events and connections to student wellness centers
• Prioritize: What is your most crucial ask?
• Levels: Organize a soft, middle, and reach ask that you go for depending on
how the meeting is going.
• Funnel: Keep your list of asks to no more than 3-4 in a meeting
• Keep in Touch: Drive the accountability- know who is going to be responsible
for specifics; offer to send back notes so you can loop back in.

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Gregg Ross
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Engaging Federal Government
and Elected Officials

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Joint USDA/HHS Statewide Media Call
Target audience: Rural communities
Who: HHS Regional Director; USDA State Director in IN, OH,
and WI
Strategy: Press calls are more successful when the message is
specific to a particular, targeted audience. In this case, rural
communities.
Outcome: Rate of success varied among states, but
overall successful in generating local coverage in
otherwise untouched areas
External Validator

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Ohio:
http://sidneydailynews.com/features/health/
12750/healthcare-coverage-deadlines-loom
Wisconsin:
http://www.wpr.org/listen/873671
Press Hits…
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HUD Partnership
Target audience: Low-income housing units
Who: HUD Field Office Director
Strategy: In order to maximize press coverage and attendance, utilize multiple contact lists
Outcome: In Indianapolis, HUD and HHS teamed up to host a kickoff enrollment and press
event
External Validator

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Cook County Elected Officials
Target audience: All remaining Chicago uninsured
Who: Cook County President Preckwinkle; Cook
County Hospitals CEO Dr. Shannon; Illinois
Secretary of State White; Chicago Dept of Public
Health Commissioner Morita; Sen. Dick Durbin
Targeted media: Chicago TV
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Chicago Kick-off with Mayor
Emmanuel:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-aca-open-enrollment-1117-biz-
20151116-story.html
Chicago “Morning Takeover” Radio:
http://wgci.iheart.com/onair/chicago-morning-takeover-55915/get-covered-
illinois-talks-with-the-14326101/
Chicago County President
Preckwinkle:
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2016/01/26/health-officials-pushing-uninsured-
to-sign-up-for-coverage-ahead-of-affordable-care-act-deadline/
Press Hits…
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Action steps:
External Validator
• Reach out — confirm your validator!
• Draft “talking points” for validator and
scheduling a planning call.
• Use your validators' contacts for a press list.
• Have validator identify “must-have” media
outlets for pitch calls

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Theme Events for Media “Hooks”
Howard Brown Health Center
Target audience: LGBT community
Who: Representative Quigley, local alderman, community partners (Equality Illinois), consumer
Targeted media: Windy City Times, the only Chicago gay media outlet

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Chicago “Southland”
Target audience: African American males 18-35
Who: IL State Rep. Evans, IL State Senator Harris,
community groups, Black Greek life
Targeted media: African-American Times (church
weekly)
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Mayor Op-Ed Outreach
Target audience: Local newspapers
Strategy: Asking Mayors that HHS has relationships with to pitch a
300-word op-ed written in their names to dailies (and/or weeklies)
“Barnstorming”
Target audience: local radio, print and TV outlets
Strategy: Host a series of press conferences in multiple cities with
local elected officials, assisters, and consumers in advance of a
deadline.
Leverage Contacts

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Action steps:
Leverage Contacts
• Reach out to Mayor’s office either
several weeks before OE begins or a
month before the deadline to make ask
• Follow-up calls to Mayors to confirm
• Offer to send draft op-ed to your Mayor

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• External Validators
• Theme “Hooks”
• Leverage Contacts
Key Takeaways:

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What are your questions?
What are you best practices?
Let’s discuss.
Questions and Answers

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Where do we go from here? — Next Steps

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Action steps:
Where to now?
• Check out the “how-to” worksheet
provided.
• Step up! Reach out! Be bold!
• Map out all your resources.
• What are all the government agencies that
touch uninsured’s lives?

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What are you taking away from today?
What will you immediately act on?
Open Discussion: Immediate Action

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THANK YOU!