Department of Health

Management of Child Health Plus B

In New York State’s Child Health Plus B Program, which is administered by the Department of Health, free or low-cost health insurance is provided to low-income children who are not eligible for the free health insurance provided through the Department’s Child Health Plus A Program (formerly known as Medicaid). We examined the actions taken by the Department to increase enrollment in the Child Health Plus B Program. We found that these actions had been effective, as enrollment increased from about 153,000 in November 1997 to more than 530,000 in October 2000. We also examined the actions taken by the Department to make use of all the federal funding available for the program. We found that, in increasing enrollment and expanding program coverage as we recommended in our prior audit report 97-S-10, the Department had made significant progress in its efforts to make use of all available funding.

We also examined the actions taken by the Department to ensure that children eligible for the Child Health Plus A Program were not incorrectly enrolled in the Child Health Plus B Program, as such errors could result in the loss of federal funds. We found that improvements had been made in the Department’s enrollment process, but further improvements were needed. We recommended actions that could be taken by the Department to further increase enrollment and to provide additional assurance that only eligible children were enrolled.

For a complete copy of Report 2000-S-28 click here.
For a copy of the 90-day response click here.
For a copy of the associated follow-up report click here.