Abstract
Aim
Community health center (CHC) staff play a key role in connecting vulnerable patients to health services. This study aims to gauge the health insurance literacy (HIL) of CHC staff and identify factors associated with HIL.
Subjects and methods
One hundred and fifty-two staff members from three health centers completed an anonymous survey that assessed their knowledge and confidence in utilizing health insurance plans.
Results
Multivariate logistic regression was performed to identify predictors of HIL. The average HIL score among CHC staff was 6.3 out of 10. Education, occupation, race/ethnicity, and self-reported health status were all significantly associated with average HIL score.
Conclusion
The results of this study demonstrate a need for health insurance training among staff who help patients navigate health care.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adepoju O, Mask A, McLeod A (2019) Factors associated with health insurance literacy: proficiency in finding, selecting, and making appropriate decisions. J Healthc Manag 64:79–89
Edward J, Morris S, Mataoui F, Granberry P, Williams MV, Torres I (2018) The impact of health and health insurance literacy on access to care for Hispanic/Latino communities. Public Health Nurs 35(3):175–183
Ghaddar S, Byun J, Krishnaswami J (2018) Health insurance literacy and awareness of the Affordable Care Act in a vulnerable Hispanic population. Patient Educ Couns 101(12):2233–2240
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on the Consequences of Uninsurance (2001) Why health insurance matters. National Academies Press (US), Washington (DC)
Kaiser Family Foundation (2018) Key Facts About the Uninsured Population. https://www.kff.org/uninsured/fact-sheet/key-facts-about-theuninsured-population/. Accessed 17 Nov 2019
Loewenstein G, Friedman JY, McGill B et al (2013) Consumers’ misunderstanding of health insurance. J Health Econ 32:850–862
Norton M, Hamel L, Brodie M (2014) Assessing Americans’ familiarity with health insurance terms and concepts. Kaiser Family Foundation. https://www.kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/assessing-americans-familiarity-with-health-insurance-terms-and-concepts/. Accessed 25 Oct 2019
Paez KA, Mallery CJ, Noel H et al (2014) Development of the health insurance literacy measure (HILM): conceptualizing and measuring consumer ability to choose and use private health insurance. J Health Commun 19:225–239
Quincy L (2012) Measuring health insurance literacy: a call to action: a report from the Health Insurance Literacy Expert Roundtable. https://advocacy.consumerreports.org/research/measuring-health-insurance-literacy-a-call-to-action/. Accessed 10 Nov 2019
Rosenbaum S, Tolbert J, Sharac J, Shin P, Gunsalus R, Zur J (2018) Community health centers: growing importance in a changing health care system. https://www.kff.org/report-section/community-health-centers-growing-importance-in-a-changing-health-care-system-issue-brief/. Accessed 5 Feb 2020
Smith KT, Monti D, Mir N, Peters E, Tipirneni R, Politi MC (2018) Access is necessary but not sufficient: factors influencing delay and avoidance of health care services. MDM Policy Pract 26(3):2381468318760298
Tipirneni R, Politi MC, Kullgren JT, Kieffer EC, Goold SD, Scherer AM (2018) Association between health insurance literacy and avoidance of health care services owing to cost. JAMA Netw Open 1(7):e184796
Villagra VG, Bhuva B, Coman E, Smith DO, Fifield J (2019) Health insurance literacy: disparities by race, ethnicity, and language preference. Am J Manag Care 25(3):e71–e75
Funding
There was no source of funding provided for this research.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The authors declare they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
ESM 1
(DOCX 16 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Williams, C.B., Pensa, M.A. & Olson, D.P. Health insurance literacy in community health center staff. J Public Health (Berl.) 29, 1261–1265 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01250-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10389-020-01250-x