With today’s Presidential inauguration – and with it Donald Trump’s promise to reform healthcare – only hours away, hospitals and healthcare associations are flooded with questions and concerns about what coverage is going to look like in the next few years.
Healthcare professionals and the general public need to separate the facts from the noise.
And there’s a lot of noise.
Luckily, organizations like the nonprofit law firm Advocacy & Benefits Counseling for Health (ABC for Health) are busy creating educational webcasts covering topics such as BadgerCare Plus, Health Reform’s Marketplace, Medicaid, Medicare, coverage eligibility, The Affordable Care Act and more.
“The whole world is being turned upside-down with the changing political landscape. We’re using video to push out updates about the changes to healthcare, and we’re doing some myth-busting,” said Brynne McBride, ABC for Health COO.
The Madison, Wis. nonprofit law firm, which specializes in providing teaching and training relevant to child health coverage for Wisconsin families, continuously updates its online video library –part of its HealthWatch Wisconsin project -with informational webcasts.
Anyone can watch these free videos. McBride and her colleagues use an in-house studio to record on-demand webcasts via Mediasite. Viewers can even take polls and ask questions directly from the video player.
“People are asking their doctors, nurses and social workers questions about their coverage options, but those professionals don’t always know the nuanced answers. The training that we’re doing can help not only educate the general public but also empower those professionals to be able to better answer those types of questions,” McBride said.
During the last two months, the firm created about 30 videos around these topics. After this week’s inauguration, McBride plans to create content more frequently – 5-10 videos per week to keep up with the growing demand.
While the intent is to reach Wisconsin professionals and families, these videos are being seen around the country. In addition to publishing videos to its HealthWatch Wisconsin library, some are also published to the firm’s YouTube channel. Most recently, McBride’s video about Open Enrollment 2017 received thousands of views, demonstrating the power of video to expand reach and engagement.
Check out the on-demand library of videos at healthwatchwisconsin.org under ‘Resources.’
