VNA delivers care to over 30,000 Aurora residents a year making it by far the largest primary care provider for people in need in Aurora.

Approximately 10,000 of these individuals have no insurance of any kind. Uninsured people receive less medical care and less timely care, they have worse health outcomes. Their lack of insurance is a fiscal burden for them and their families. Moreover, the benefits of expanding coverage outweigh the costs for added services.

With this grant, Dunham Fund will partner with VNA Health Care to improve access to insurance within Aurora by the implementation of a multi-pronged, collaborative strategy to raise awareness regarding medical insurance coverage through Medicaid/Managed Medicaid and ACA Marketplace products.

VNA plans to deliver bi-lingual benefit information and enrollment services for Medicaid and Medicaid Managed Care plans and will partner with Get Covered Illinois to facilitate enrollment within VNA clinics for ACA Marketplace plans. The percentage of the Hispanic population in Kane County (31%) is already double that of the state’s Hispanic percentage overall. 65% of VNA patients identify themselves as Hispanic. Kane County has the largest proportion of Hispanics in the state, with Aurora now the largest Hispanic community in Illinois outside of Chicago.

Dunham Fund support will deliver a year-long accessible, community-wide awareness and health insurance enrollment campaign.