Health Insurance Literacy Academy Project
The Health Insurance Literacy Academy (HILA) Project is a partnership among the American Association on Health & Disability (AAHD), Independent Living Research Utilization (ILRU), the Collaborative on Health Reform and Independent Living (CHRIL) that aimed to develop and implement a health insurance literacy training academy for CIL staff so that they would be able to empower people with disabilities to make knowledgeable and confident private and public health insurance choices. The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) and the Association for Programs in Rural Independent Living (APRIL) assisted in recruitment of CIL staff training participants.
The purpose of the proposed project was to develop a training and technical assistance program on health insurance literacy so that people with disabilities would be able to make informed decisions regarding their private and public health insurance coverage that will, in turn, improve their health and facilitate their inclusion and integration into society, employment, independent living, family support, and economic and social self-sufficiency.
Timeline
In Year 1 (2019), a focus group of disability leaders from ILRU, APRIL, NCIL, CIL staff, and health insurance and health policy experts identified topics and learning objectives for the HILA training curriculum. AAHD drafted the training curriculum, while working closely with the project’s partners. In Year 2 and Year 3 (2020-2023), expert co-trainers from AAHD and ILRU pilot tested the curriculum in virtual training sessions via Zoom and on-demand online training sessions with CIL staff and other disability advocates following continuous quality improvement principles.
Results
Once the training was completed, participants were encouraged to complete a knowledge and confidence survey for each learning objective on a four-point scale. Both live and on-demand training showed an increase in knowledge for each learning objective and a gain in confidence in using the training content, with a total of 144 participants being enrolled; 61 participants for the live training and 83 for the on-demand training.
This project was supported, in part by grant number 90IFDV0010, from the U.S. Administration for Community Living, Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, D.C. 20201.
Grantees undertaking projects with government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Points of view or opinions do not, therefore, necessarily represent official ACL policy.