[Libs-Or] Cover Oregon in Coos County

[Paul Addis]

Hi All,

This month we had two Cover Oregon presentations here in Coos County, 
one at the North Bend Public Library on the 8^th and another at the Coos 
Bay Public Library on the 22^nd .

At Coos Bay, our presenter, Isaac Bright from the Waterfall Community 
Health Center, gave a brief PowerPoint presentation before moving into a 
Q&A session where he illustrated different scenarios on the Cover Oregon 
website, using information provided by patrons to show the differences 
between plans from different providers and described the differences 
between credits, premiums, and actual amounts patients will have to pay 
monthly. This was the best part of the presentation as patrons were able 
to ask specific questions and receive answers with visual representations.

I highly recommend this type of presentation, especially if you're like 
us and have a large population of lower income patrons with very few 
resources and avenues for help. After attending a couple webinars and a 
local community meeting, most delivered by Cover Oregon, this was the 
most useful and informative presentation I've attended as Isaac was 
extremely well-informed and has front line experience. He personally 
helps approximately 5 people sign up a day. As our patrons came armed 
with many questions and strong feelings, it helped that Isaac was 
extremely patient, knowledgeable, and understanding. I strongly 
recommend holding this type of event lead by a trained community partner 
who has experience working with your community. Our event was scheduled 
for two hours and went a little over so you should allow plenty of time 
for discussion. We had 36 people in attendance and most of these people 
had questions, many of which were very personal and had to be addressed 
one on one at the end.

The event went so well that we are considering holding another 
presentation. Attendees were very appreciative and we've already 
received requests for another Cover Oregon event.

Abbie Anderson, Assistant Director at North Bend Public Library, shared 
the following on their presentation;

/Isaac Bright, from the Waterfall Clinic for low-income health care in 
the Coos Bay area, spoke to a small but feisty group of 10 adults at the 
North Bend Public Library on October 8 at 7:00 p.m. We took the 
opportunity to schedule Isaac at a time that worked for him, but which 
gave us very little time for publicity to get the word out for the 
event. This was also during the first week of Cover Oregon's existence, 
when most of what people were hearing about the program and the website 
was that it was still in the early stages and didn't completely work 
yet. That said, the group that came had excellent questions, and were 
receptive to Isaac's professionally delivered information and his 
engaging personality.///

///We are fortunate at our library that our half-time Reference 
Librarian, Dianne Zarder, has chosen to volunteer as a Cover Oregon 
assister. She said that her training had given her information that 
Isaac apparently didn't have at that early date. October 8 seems to long 
ago in the lifetime of Cover Oregon! Many questions have been answered 
since that date.

/Just wanted to share. Hope it helps. These events gave our libraries 
the opportunity to strengthen our relationship with one of our community 
partners. Feel free to send me any specific questions or insight. I 
would like to hear what other Oregon libraries are doing to assist their 
patrons with Cover Oregon.

Thanks,

Paul

/-- /
Paul Addis
Reference Librarian
Coos Bay Public Library
525 Anderson Ave
Coos Bay, OR 97420
541-269-1101 x222
paddis at cclsd.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://omls.oregon.gov/pipermail/libs-or/attachments/20131029/70319dad/attachment.html>