My name is Warren Yamashita and I am an Albert Schweitzer Fellow and current MD/MPH student at Keck School of Medicine of USC. In partnership with the USC Rossier School of Education’s Covered CA Education and Outreach program, I am working to develop an interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate student leadership team to recruit, train and send Covered CA and Medi-Cal student educators to education and enrollment opportunities in Los Angeles, targeting low-enrollment Latino and young adult populations. Under a larger student coalition called Connecting Californians to Care (CCTC) with UCLA and Charles Drew University, I am building a network of USC student educators before next year's Covered CA open enrollment period that begins on November 15th.
This past year we had over 150 UCLA and USC students educate
consumers about Covered CA and Medi-Cal plans at 7 different enrollment fairs
with non-profits, schools and churches. By augmenting Covered CA
Certified Enrollment Entities' education and enrollment efforts with an
interdisciplinary student educator force, I hope to fulfill key opportunities
for education and enrollment within low-enrollment Latino and young adult
populations that in the past have been unreached due to a lack of staff and
funding. This project will also offer healthcare students the unique
opportunity to integrate health insurance advisement into a more wholistic
model of patient care while working in an interdisciplinary setting to
positively impact underserved communities in LA County. Over the summer I
am looking to gather a team of undergraduate and graduate student leaders
representing the breadth of USC's programs (ie: JD, MD, MGH, MPH, PA, PT, OT,
Pharm, Dental, Undergrad, etc) to facilitate event planning and recruitment and
training of student educators next Fall. Interested students can also
participate in a research component of this project. If you are interested we
have a conference call on June 20th at 10am. Please email me at wyamashi@gmail.com.
Thank you,
Warren
