State health officials said Wednesday they’ve resumed removing people from the Medicaid rolls after they briefly paused the disenrollments to give Kansans more time to have their eligibility for the program reviewed.
A spokesperson for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said Monday in an email that the agency halted “discontinuances” in May and June as the state unwinds from a federal law that kept beneficiaries from being removed from Medicaid during the pandemic.
The agency did not specify on Monday how long the pause would last and did not immediately respond to a follow-up email on Tuesday morning asking about how long the disenrollments were paused.
On Wednesday afternoon, a spokesperson said in an email that the disenrollments started again on July 18. The agency was first asked in an email on July 17 about whether disenrollments were stopped.
The agency also said Wednesday that it would increase the renewal time frame for beneficiaries from 30 days to 60 days.
The agency halted “discontinuances” because of concerns about postal service delays and other “challenges interfering with the federally required 30 days for members to return their renewals.”
Last week, it was reported that 12 states halted disenrollments and reinstated coverage because a majority of the people cut off of Medicaid were cut for procedural reasons where a beneficiary didn’t complete the process because they didn’t receive the forms or didn’t submit them on time.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services revealed it halted the eligibility verifications to address the procedural disenrollments. CMS didn’t disclose the 12 affected states. Kansas officials said they made the decision to pause of their own volition.
States across the country are now “unwinding” from the continuous enrollment provision in federal law that allowed beneficiaries to remain on Medicaid rolls during the pandemic without needing to have their eligibility determined.
The federal government suspended those eligibility reviews during the COVID-19 pandemic emergency, but they started up again in April under legislation passed by Congress. The change is forcing millions of people off the Medicaid rolls.
The Kaiser Family Foundation reported this week that 3.7 million people nationally have lost Medicaid coverage during the unwinding process.
KFF reported that in states with available data, 73% of all people disenrolled had their coverage terminated for procedural reasons where a beneficiary didn’t complete the process because they didn’t receive the forms or didn’t submit them on time.
Texas leads the country with total disenrollments at 501,000 followed by Florida at 408,000, Washington at 230,000, California at 225,000 and Arkansas at 219,000.
KFF reported that Kansas had the fourth highest disenrollment rate in the country at about 65%. Texas also had the highest disenrollment rate at 82% followed by Idaho at 76% and South Carolina at 72%.
New data released by the state health department on Tuesday showed that a vast percentage of people affected by the unwinding in Kansas are children.
The state health department broke down by age group the number of Kansans who were placed in the 90-day window during April and May when they were discontinued for procedural reasons.
About 62% of those beneficiaries who were placed in the 90-day window were 18 and younger, the data shows. About 15% were 4 and under, the data shows.
The data showed that there are 61,621 people in the 90-day window, including about 38,000 who were 18 and under.
The agency said that was not unusual because children account for more than 60% of the Medicaid population.
“As the majority of our members, their percentage would be much higher than other populations,” Christine Osterlund, deputy KDHE secretary for agency integration and Medicaid, said in a statement.
Osterlund said the agency and the managed care companies that administer the Medicaid program conducted outreach campaigns to encourage families to turn in their eligibility review.
The managed care companies, she said, specifically reached out to those at risk of losing coverage for not returning an eligibility determination.
KDHE provided the managed care organizations with a list of at-risk members.
The MCOs have helped boost outreach by sharing information with providers regarding when their patient is up for renewal, the agency said.
The state health department has been seeking help from the federal government, getting approval for waivers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to give the state the flexibility to help people get their eligibility determined.
The approved waivers give the state the ability to take some of the burden off of recipients to renew their coverage.
For example, KDHE is passively renewing KanCare members with no income when no data is returned through income verification against data sources to determine if the member meets passive criteria, the agency said.
With this flexibility, the agency said beneficiaries are able to continue down the passive renewal path based on their last verified report of no income, when the data sources do not return income data.
“This flexibility promotes continuity of coverage and reduces the burden for members to supply information,” the agency said.
“A passive review means the member does not need to take action to be approved for Medicaid for the next year.”
The waivers also allow the managed care organizations that administer the Medicaid program to update contact information for beneficiaries or allow the state to update that information using the U.S. Postal Service or the National Change of Address database.
The state also is seeking federal approval for other measures that would permit managed care plans to provide assistance to beneficiaries to complete and submit Medicaid renewal forms.
The state also is seeking permission to reinstate eligibility effective on the individual’s prior termination date for anyone cut off because of a procedural reason and are subsequently determined eligible for Medicaid during a 90-day reconsideration period.
