Implementing Health Reform in New York: Maximizing Coverage for Immigrants

• Developed a white paper, “Maximizing Health Care Reform for New York’s Immigrants,” which offers choices for State policymakers to preserve and promote immigrants’ access to health care coverage and to mitigate disparities between citizens and noncitizens in health care;
• Garnered press attention from both national and local media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal, NY1, and local ethnic press; abd
• Held a national webinar to discuss the findings and has continued to present the report at health- and immigration-related conferences.

Recommendations outlined in the report continue to be implemented in the Exchange, including:

• The Exchange provides multilingual telephone support; offers training to customer service representatives on cultural competence and language access; and offers written materials and spoken language in individuals’ preferred language.
• The Exchange has designated language access coordinators responsible for creating and implementing language access policies and procedures for the Exchange.
• Exchange staff members have established an informal health disparities workgroup, which has allowed for feedback loops to be established.
• Organizations that received Navigator funding were required to address language capacity issues, and Navigators reflect a broad cross-section of community-based organizations that are embedded in immigrant communities.

NYIC plans to continue to advocate for the remaining recommendations to be included in the Exchange.