GALS Partners with Dell Children's Health Plan to support families on Medicaid
GALS Birthworkers now provide comprehensive, wrap-around services to birthing people on the Dell Children’s Health Plan Medicaid program at no cost to the family!
Support can be initiated at any point in the pregnancy, or even during labor. This program includes: initial intake and assessment from GALS staff, matching client to an appropriate birthworker, 4 visits around the birth event- typically distributed as 2 prenatal visits, continuous labor support and 2 postpartum visits, and/or enrollment into the Postpartum Doula Program for additional in-home postpartum doula care visits of 20 or more hours.
This is the first medicaid-community doula partnership in the state of Texas and we are so excited to support more families and make a bigger impact on birth outcomes in Central Texas because of this program.
PRESS RELEASE, SEPT 2022
Giving Austin Labor Support and Dell Children’s Health Plan Enhance Doula Coverage in Central Texas
Doulas for STAR and CHIP members to address maternal health in the Central Texas community.
Austin, Texas—Giving Austin Labor Support (GALS) is working with Dell Children’s Health Plan (a subsidiary of Ascension Texas) to enhance the health offerings for Central Texas mothers receiving Medicaid STAR and CHIP. Dell Children’s Health Plan is the first health plan in Texas offering pregnancy, birth and postpartum doula support to Medicaid recipients, and working with GALS will improve critical health outcomes and address root causes of health disparities, remove barriers to access, and advance community conditions for health and wellness.
The program is an extension of a pilot program launched by Dell Children’s Health Plan and GALS last year.
Texas continues to face a maternal healthcare crisis, with disparate health outcomes particularly for new mothers and babies in underserved areas. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black, American Indian and Alaska Native women are two to three times as likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause than white women. While there is no one policy change that can solve this complex crisis, doula care is an evidence-based intervention and an essential step toward advancing maternal health equity and reducing mortality and morbidity.
GALS provides emotional, physical, and informational support to birthing people and healthcare professionals who are under-supported in order to improve birth outcomes and strengthen families. Dedicated to advancing health equity in Central Texas and beyond, GALS is improving birth outcomes and ensuring no one births alone. GALS provides low-income and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) families with wrap-around perinatal support through the following programs:
● On-call birth support for those actively in labor through postpartum
● Full-spectrum prenatal doula program
● Postpartum doula support program
● Jail support program for those pregnant/postpartum at the Travis County Correctional Complex
● Perinatal childcare for Black mothers in partnership with the Maternal Health Equity Collaborative
Since 2009, over 750 families have received support from GALS programs in Central Texas, in an area spanning as far north as Temple/Killeen and as far south as San Marcos. Dell Children’s Health Plan is one of very few Medicaid plans in the country that funds doulas. One of a kind in Texas, Dell Children’s Health Plan provides members on STAR and CHIP access to a doula through the GALS community of care.
"GALS provides an extraordinary benefit for our community and it is our honor to work with such an amazing organization. Support for women throughout their pregnancy and postpartum period is essential for successful outcomes and healthy families," said Kristen Cover, Associate Vice President of Dell Children’s Health Plan.
By expanding support for these families, GALS seeks to expand the impact through a multi-tiered, Social Determinants of Health perspective, providing essential services and care that all parents deserve and enhancing health equity through community engagement, health access, perinatal education, and sustainability of care for birthing people in Central Texas.
“Dell Children’s Health Plan is making a huge statement by adding doula services to their value added benefits,” Morgan Miles, GALS Executive Director said. “Paying for birth workers to provide needed doula care to families will move the needle on maternal health outcomes in Central Texas. GALS is so excited to be a part of this.”
Providing the services of a well-established, active community doula organization to Medicaid health plan members will lead to increased positive health outcomes, increased patient satisfaction, lower medical costs, and provide families a foundation for a healthy life.
Learn more about the program by visiting, givingaustinlaborsupport.org
Learn more about Dell Children’s Health Plan by visiting, dellchildrenshealthplan.com
GALS Austin
GALS is dedicated to providing emotional, physical, and informational support to birthing people and healthcare professionals who are under-supported in order to improve birth outcomes and strengthen families. Morgan Miles is the Executive Director, morgan@givingaustinlaborsupport.org, 512-934-2171
About Ascension Texas
In Texas, Ascension operates Ascension Providence, Ascension Seton, which includes Dell Children’s Medical Center, the region’s only comprehensive children’s hospital and pediatric Level I trauma center, and Dell Seton Medical Center at The University of Texas, the region’s only Level I trauma center for adults. Ascension Seton partners with Dell Medical School at The University of Texas at Austin and shares a common vision of transforming healthcare through a focus on quality and value. Serving Texas for 120 years, Ascension is a faith-based healthcare organization committed to delivering compassionate, personalized care to all, with special attention to persons living in poverty and those most vulnerable. Ascension is one of the leading non-profit and Catholic health systems in the U.S., operating 2,600 sites of care – including 143 hospitals and more than 40 senior living facilities – in 19 states and the District of Columbia. Visit www.ascension.org and www.dellchildrens.net.