CAHIP and NABIP Foundation Update

CAHIP and NABIP Foundation Updates

November 20, 2024

Both CAHIP and NABIP have education and charitable foundations whose goals are to educate consumers and the broader public about health care and health insurance.  Over the course of time, the foundations have offered a variety of different programs to our industry and the public through our efforts on the various foundations.  As we have evaluated our needs, a new roadmap has been hashed out for the foundations.  We have a few new directions to navigate.

Both the CAHIP and the NABIP foundations are working together now to create consumer – facing information about health insurance and health care, and how to navigate the system.  The overall goal is to help the public understand health insurance to make their use of the system more effective, to reduce frustration through understanding, and to allow them to be better purchasers of health care.

Our goal is to produce quality educational materials, such as videos, written materials and other media on our consumer facing sites to become a place of knowledge for those facing complicated health conditions, and how to use their health plans to address those issues.  While insurance carriers and medical providers are the ones who generally provide this type of information at the point of service, we believe that there is a significant value to building the type of information about how to access health care effectively in our country.

NABIP Foundation (nabipfoundation.org) and the NABIP Mental Health Task Force rolled out our first program under the Mental Health Corner of the foundation web site.  We are planning a large expansion of the information available to consumers over the next year, with significant acquisition of new materials and information on a whole range of areas.  We expect to be able to allow use for NABIP members to use in enrollment settings and in general education settings for their clients.  Some of this information will be purchased from existing vendors and much of it will be developed by staff and NABIP members.  The long-term goal is to make NABIP the place where consumers go if they have questions about health insurance, and how to best address their issues.  Of course, agents will be a big part of that.

Another new road the Foundation will be going down is to do original research on issues surrounding health care, including longitudinal polling about American’s attitudes about our health care system, and in-depth research into impacts on the system that we see each day in areas like provider consolidation, pharmacy utilization, and other key drivers of costs.  The intention is to provide non-partisan information to the public about our industry, and to help us better understand the policy questions that we address with Congress and the states who are developing legislation on what often is faulty knowledge of the system.

Lastly, we are going to focus on our own work-force for our industry.  As many know, the average age for an insurance agent is fairly old. We all know we need new blood in our industry.   We are looking to develop college courses and internships for young folks to come into our business and give us the ability to bring them along.  While this is in its infancy, we do think that there are significant resources to bring to bear on this through governmental work-force grants to the Foundation.  More to come on this in the coming year.

It is an exciting time for the NABIP and CAHIP foundations as they move forward in a more outward facing mode, with the desire to be a place for consumers to become educated on health insurance. If you are able to make a contribution to the NAHIP Educational Foundation, which will be providing most of the work-product to our statewide educational site, please click on this link.

Patrick Burns

Burns Employee Benefits Insurance Services, LLC

CAHIP VP of Community Outreach