Adolescents and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP): Healthy Options for Meeting the Needs of Adolescents.

This publication summarizes key findings and themes from interviews conducted in 1998 with representatives from 12 states regarding the State Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP). The CHIP helps meet the complex health care needs faced by low-income, uninsured adolescents, including those with special needs. The report also examines key research and reports and discusses the experiences of various related organizations in adolescent health financing and delivery. After presenting a background, the report describes research methodology and discusses major issues for adolescents under CHIP: benefit package, outreach and enrollment, assuring access to care, confidentiality, adolescents with special needs, school-based/school-linked health centers, quality assurance, evaluation, and linkages with other health and social service programs. Findings related to each issue are presented. Overall, states are responding to the challenge of implementing CHIP with creativity and innovation. They realize that low-income adolescents have unique health needs that require targeted efforts. The four appendixes contain names and titles of interview respondents, respondents' priority issues for adolescents, summary of CHIP programs/plans for surveyed states, and resources on CHIP and adolescents. (Contains approximately 110 references.) (SM)