The Aftermath of the Medicaid Changes
In our March Newsletter, we discussed the changes happening with Medicaid and encouraged everyone receiving those services to act swiftly if they receive statements about updating their information. During the past few months, these changes have been rolled out across the United States and over 1 million people have lost services so far.
There is a lot of confusion over what exactly is happening, so we wanted to clear up some of the questions you may have as best as we can. The reason that this change is happening is because during the height of the pandemic, the federal government enacted a National State of Emergency that required states to accept more people into Medicaid and prohibited them from dropping anyone from receiving services. This helped many people get or keep support when they needed it the most.
Now that the world is attempting to return to normalcy, it is not feasible for states to continue supporting this many people on Medicaid, especially since many who are being covered would not have qualified before the State of Emergency. Therefore, the federal government set a timeline for states to start reevaluating coverage starting in April.
However, with the sheer amount of people that every state had to process, any missing updates in a person's income or personal information led to them getting notices about being dropped (or if you were unlucky, getting dropped without warning). The majority of people were dropped for not filling out paperwork.
Before the pandemic, states were able to work through individual cases as problems arose, but now everything is happening at the same time which is leading to numerous problems for both the individuals receiving Medicaid and the people assisting them with keeping their services. Many people have found that every time they get a problem with their coverage resolved, a new problem arises and they have to start the grueling process of getting changes made to fix the problem all over. Considering the number of people who are all trying to get these fixes made at the same time, this is not a smooth or pleasant process.
Though eligibility review was required by the federal government, many states were too hasty in making these changes and have caused themselves and their residents much stress.
The best thing that you can do if you were unjustly dropped from Medicaid, is to keep calling and resolving issues as they come up. Though it may be a headache, it is likely worth it in order to keep your Medicaid benefits.
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