NYC Health Insurance Link

One of the main ways that OCHIA executes its health insurance outreach, education and enrollment assistance is through a citywide outreach initiative known as NYC Health Insurance Link.  

Through this initiative, OCHIA staff leverages the experience and knowledge of City agency staff to build outreach and enrollment assistance strategies to connect uninsured New Yorkers to health insurance coverage at convenient neighborhood venues. 

We work directly with liaisons at several City agencies to determine the best agency programs, events and activities where outreach and enrollment assistance would work best to reach uninsured residents. 

We actively partner with facilitated marketplace enrollers employed by most of the Medicaid managed care plans operating in New York City (e.g. Affinity Health Plan, Metro Plus, Healthfirst and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield Health Plus) as well as local community health insurance assistor organizations (e.g. Morris Heights Health Center, NADAP, and Single Stop USA) to provide on-site enrollment assistance at designated agency programs and facilities.

Four common principles support NYC HI LINK's diverse outreach and enrollment techniques:

1. Providing local access to health insurance through strategic placement of facilitated enrollers in neighborhoods and communities
2. Integrating health insurance outreach into City agencies' and community organizations' work to create seamless and sustainable enrollment strategies throughout the community
3. Broadening access to consistently reach as many people as possible
4. Using data to assess, refine and develop new strategies.