Dive Brief:
- More than half a million enrollees in 11 states have already been removed from the Medicaid program as states begin the process of determining who is still eligible for coverage after a period of continuous enrollment during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- An analysis from KFF found high rates of procedural disenrollments in some states, where people are removed from the program because they didn’t complete enrollment and may still be eligible. Nearly 89% of disenrollments were due to procedural reasons in Indiana and Arkansas, and procedural disenrollments made up 82% of the total in Florida.
- The nonprofit research organization said the high numbers of procedural disenrollments could mean eligible people are being removed, and some may not regain coverage.
Dive Insight:
States can now begin the process of winnowing their Medicaid rolls after the program ballooned during the pandemic. Some researchers have raised concerns that low-income people could completely lose coverage, while hitting hospitals’ revenue and payers’ enrollment growth.
KFF said the early data offers “an important, but incomplete, picture” of the Medicaid redeterminations process, as not all states have publicly reported renewal information. In March, KFF research found many states planned to take their time to determine who was still eligible for coverage.
But many people aren’t aware of Medicaid redeterminations, with two-thirds of enrollees reporting they weren’t sure whether states could now remove people from the program if they don’t meet eligibility requirements or haven’t renewed their coverage.
“While it is possible that some people are not completing the renewal process because they have other coverage, the survey findings suggest many of the people whose coverage was terminated for procedural reasons in the past month likely remain eligible,” KFF’s Jennifer Tolbert, Bradley Corallo, Patrick Drake and Sophia Moreno wrote.
Nearly 250,000 were disenrolled in Florida alone, according to the analysis. Nearly 73,000 were removed in Arkansas, while 53,000 were cut in Indiana.
Nine states reported total completed renewals and disenrollments. Among these, the disenrollment rate was highest in Florida at 54%, while Pennsylvania and Virginia reached 10%. The median rate was 24%.
