Unwinding of Medicaid from PHE in Missouri
The Renewal process to verify Medicaid enrollment in Missouri started at the end of June; here are some preliminary findings from June and July
The process of recertifying enrollment in Medicaid, which generally had been done on an annual basis before the COVID pandemic, was paused during the Public Health Emergency (PHE) by federal law in early 2020. This meant that those enrolled in Medicaid during that period were not disenrolled. Federal law passed at the end of 2022 called for an end to the PHE, and a renewal of the recertification process, commonly called the “unwinding” of the pandemic as it is affecting Medicaid.
Nationwide Medicaid enrollment rose to a record high during the pandemic, and in Missouri the enrollment also rose to over 1.5 million, a record.
The first two months of data have now been reported by the state of Missouri in a public dashboard, and also reported by law to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). The nmbers for Missouri can be compared to other states using, for example, the Kaiser Family Foundation’s unwinding website, which is being continuously updated. This post will review some of the major conclusions from this data, largely drawn from the table attached.
Some major points:
In June and July, about 222,800 of the Medicaid recipients have been reviewed (see table). The state’s plan is to review the total set of enrollees over a 12-month period.
In the first two months, 52% of those reviewed have been determined still eligible for Medicaid, while 54,160 (24.3%) have been declared ineligible or lost coverage. Another 52,142 are pending review.
Of those losing coverage, over the first two months, 73.8% lost coverage for procedural reasons as opposed to being declared ineligible for coverage.
Of the total persons losing coverage over the first two months, half are children (27,085, 50%), 31% are from the adult expansion group (16,843), 9% are custodial parents (5,062), 6.5% are disabled (3,507), and 3% are aged/elders (1,663).
Of the recipients who were declared still eligible for coverage, 72% were approved by “ex parte” (the state’s records demonstrated that they were still eligible), and 28% were declared eligible by application to the state.
Over the first two months 60% of the pending applications (31,447) were for children, 24% were from expansion adults (12,744), with the rest in other categories. Reports from the state suggest that the pending application numbers for June and July will be updated at a later time.