For greater than a year-and-a-half, the continual enrollment requirement tied to enhanced Medicaid funding in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic has all however halted enrollment “churn,” the short-term lack of protection by which folks disenroll from Medicaid after which re-enroll inside a brief time period.
Such disenrollments are anticipated to renew as soon as the requirement ends and states start processing Medicaid eligibility redeterminations. People could lose protection if they’re not eligible or face obstacles in the course of the redetermination course of, akin to offering required documentation.
A brand new KFF evaluation that examined churn charges earlier than the pandemic finds that about 10 p.c of full-benefit Medicaid enrollees skilled a spot in protection of lower than a 12 months. Charges, which diverse by state, had been increased for kids and adults in comparison with the aged and other people with disabilities. Federal guidelines and state coverage selections on resuming disenrollments will affect churn charges following the tip of the continual enrollment requirement.
All of that is essential context for the talk over the Construct Again Higher Act (BBBA) in Congress. The Home-passed model of the invoice consists of provisions to part out the continual enrollment requirement for Medicaid, with guidelines that might restrict how aggressively states may disenroll folks. For instance, states may solely disenroll people who’ve been enrolled at the least 12 consecutive months and should restrict eligibility redeterminations to not more than one-twelfth of all enrollees per 30 days by means of September 2022. States couldn’t disenroll people primarily based on returned mail until there have been at the least two failed makes an attempt to contact the person by at the least two totally different strategies (e.g., mail and textual content messages).
The BBBA additionally would require states to increase 12-month steady protection for kids in Medicaid and CHIP (presently an choice for states) and would require 12-month steady protection for postpartum people, a change from the present requirement of 60-day postpartum protection and a short lived choice offered to states by means of the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
For the total evaluation about historic charges of Medicaid enrollment churn and a abstract of BBBA provisions that might restrict a return to churn, go to kff.org.