Health coverage enrollment
Medicaid, the Essential Plan and Child Health Plus. We handle eligibility, documents, the application and the renewal a year later.
Together We Are is a Brooklyn community-based organization. We help households apply for the benefits they are eligible for, keep them at renewal, and get to the care they need. All services are at no cost.
What we do
Medicaid, the Essential Plan and Child Health Plus. We handle eligibility, documents, the application and the renewal a year later.
Application, documents, the interview and recertification. We follow the case until the benefit is issued in the right amount.
Food provided directly to households in need, including while a benefits application is pending.
Reminders when a screening is due, referral to a doctor with availability, and help booking the appointment. Run through Makdim.
One-to-one mentorship for teens at risk, with support for the family alongside it.
Coordination across coverage, food, health and household needs in one case, including services delivered under New York's 1115 Medicaid Waiver with our operating partners.
Getting started
Call or email and someone will get back to you to talk through what you need. From there we'll arrange a time to sit down together.
Makdim contacts community members when a screening or annual visit is due, refers to a doctor with availability, and helps arrange the appointment. Annual physicals, mammograms and colonoscopies.
About
A community-based organization providing social, public health, workforce development and community development services. We assist clients in obtaining government and other benefits and entitlements, with a dual goal of providing immediate assistance while directing them towards a path of self-sufficiency and independence.
Together We Are was granted 501(c)(3) status in July 2010 and has operated from Brooklyn continuously since. All services are provided at no cost.
We serve everyone who reaches out to us, including households with limited English proficiency. Let us know the language you are most comfortable in and we will arrange for someone who speaks it to get back to you.
Who we serve
Our roots are in Brooklyn and most of the households we work with are here, but there is no eligibility test and no geographic line. If you need help with something we do, ask.
Families and individuals eligible for health coverage, food benefits or other entitlements who need help getting them, keeping them, or appealing a denial.
People overdue for an annual visit, a mammogram or a colonoscopy who need a reminder, a doctor with availability, and help getting the appointment made.
Mothers and families who need coverage maintained through the birth, connection to nutrition support, and follow-up in the postpartum year.
Young people who need a mentor and a steady adult presence, and families who need support alongside that.
Services
Call 718-427-2012 or email us and we'll get back to you. Most households need more than one thing, so we take the whole picture at intake rather than the one item you came to us for.
Medicaid, the Essential Plan and Child Health Plus. We screen for eligibility, gather the documents, file the application and follow it to a determination. We also hold your renewal date and call before it, since recertification is where most coverage is lost.
Application, document assistance, help through the interview and any follow-up request, and recertification when it comes due. If a household needs food while the application is pending, we provide it.
Food provided directly to households in need.
Reminders when a screening or annual visit comes due, referral to a doctor with availability, help booking, and help getting there. Delivered through Makdim. See Health Initiatives.
One-to-one mentorship for teens at risk, with family support alongside it.
Support through pregnancy, the postpartum year and early childhood — coverage continuity across the birth, connection to nutrition support, and referral into a maternal care network. Delivered with our operating partners.
One case manager coordinates a household's coverage, food, health and other needs together rather than as separate requests, and follows each one to a recorded outcome.
Screening, navigation and enhanced services for Medicaid members under New York's 1115 Waiver, delivered with our operating partners. Where a service is provided by a Social Care Network participant or another partner organization, that organization delivers it and is credited with it. We make the connection and confirm the outcome.
Where a need falls outside what we deliver — legal assistance, housing, utilities, job training, adult education — we refer into organizations that do it well, and we follow up on whether the connection held.
Before we start
Once we've spoken and set a time to meet, these are the documents we usually need to file an application.
If you don't have all of it, reach out anyway. We'll work out what's missing.
Health initiatives
A community preventive health initiative, run in coordination with Together We Are. Makdim contacts community members when care is due, connects them to a doctor, and helps arrange the visit.
To join, or to find out what care you may be due for.
Makdim is a community health initiative working in coordination with Together We Are.
Why it started
Before the initiative began, this community was screening for colon cancer at under 10% of the national average.
Chaskie Rosenberg, Makdim — one-year roundtable, Boro Park 24People were not refusing care. They did not know a screening was due, could not find a doctor with an opening, and had no straightforward way to get to the appointment.
Makdim now runs community-wide awareness campaigns, keeps a record of who is due for what, and works with primary care offices that offer appointments during and after regular hours. Members get a call rather than a letter, a referral to a doctor who has availability, and help with the booking and with getting there.
The gap has narrowed and there is still distance to cover.
How it works
One
By phone or online. Date of birth, insurance, a callback number, and relevant family health history.
Two
A person calls to confirm the details and talk through what care may be due.
Three
You hear from us when a screening or visit comes due, and about community health events.
Four
A referral to a doctor with availability, help booking, and help getting there.
What Makdim helps with
For adults at any age. Screens for high blood pressure, diabetes, and heart, liver and kidney conditions that develop without symptoms.
Generally from age 45, earlier with family history. Polyps are removed during the procedure, before they can become cancer.
Generally from age 40, earlier with family history. Screening finds cancers at a stage when treatment is less invasive.
Makdim works with primary care offices that offer appointments during and after regular hours, and helps with getting to the visit.
Individual health needs differ. Anyone unsure what applies to them can talk it through with Makdim or with a primary care doctor.
Impact
What the work has produced, across benefits, preventive health, and the care coordination we run with our partners.
Helping households apply for what they are eligible for, and keep it through renewal, has been our core work since 2010.
Through Makdim, community members are contacted when care comes due and helped through to the visit.
With our operating partners we screen, navigate and serve Medicaid members under New York's 1115 Waiver, drawing on a community network that reaches well beyond our own roster.
Partner with us
Together We Are works with managed care plans, Social Care Network lead entities, provider organizations, public agencies and funders who need to reach households that standard outreach does not.
We are the organization families in this community already call. Outreach carried by us gets answered where plan-branded mail and cold calls do not.
Screening across every social and health-related domain in one intake, navigation into the right program, and referral where the service sits elsewhere.
Outreach designed for the communities we serve rather than translated into them, with households of limited English proficiency reached in the language they are comfortable in.
Referrals resolve to a recorded status with a date. We can say what was provided, to whom, and when.
If there's something you're working on where we might be useful, we would welcome the conversation — whether it's a defined program or an early idea.
Contact
Call or email and someone will get back to you. Tell us what's going on and we'll take it from there.