The Affordable Health Care Act, or Affordable Care Act, and more commonly ACA, is now 13 years old. The approximately seven million New Yorkers who participate in three of the ACA programs – Medicaid, Child Health Plus and the Essential Plan – must renew their enrollment in them. And at the Hispanic Federation we are prepared and ready to help you.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and up until now, New Yorkers enrolled in those three plans have not had to renew their enrollments. But due to changes in federal law, as of June the state Department of Health, the New York City Human Resources Administration, and local Social Services departments are sending out mandatory renewal notices, which From now on it will have to be done every year. Those announcements may come via email, text, and/or mail when it’s time to renew each year.
“The date each Medicaid, Child Health Plus or Essential Plan enrollment must be renewed depends on the date each current insurance expires,” says Liliana Melgar, Senior Director of Health Operations for the Hispanic Federation. “Because of this, renovations will take place at various times throughout the year. For example, if a person’s insurance expires in October, they must renew their enrollment at the end of that month. That means you should receive a notification in early September.”
Just in case, it is very important that you are attentive to all the communications you receive from the New York Department of Health, which, again, can arrive by email or email, by text message or by postal mail.
To ensure those communications reach their destination on time, people who are enrolled in one of these three plans need to make sure that their New York Department of Health accounts have up-to-date information about their address, phone number, and all other contact information.
“They should also take into account that other changes may have occurred in the programs,” adds Liliana Melgar. “And that’s why it’s so important to be well informed.”
As the ACA has been doing since the inception, the specially trained staff of our Hispanic Federation can provide all the necessary help with these procedures, and with the registration of people who do not yet have any plan or who want to change the one they have. To get that help, call our toll-free, bilingual hotline at 1-833-656-2626.
“And when you make that call,” our Senior Director of Health Operations concludes, “have some ID, your address, your social security number, phone number, and income information handy.”
If you need more information about the Hispanic Federation and its organizations, you can visit http://www.hispanicfederation.org.
Celebrate our 33rd anniversary with us, and see you in the next column!
Frankie Miranda is the president of the Hispanic Federation
