17,500 Wyoming enrollees lost Medicaid or Kid Care CHIP coverage over last year

FROM WYOFILE:

Since last April, the state health department has been conducting a mandatory review process vetting who still qualifies for the insurance programs.

More than 17,500 Wyoming enrollees lost Medicaid or Kids Care CHIP coverage over the previous 12 months ending March.

That’s because the Wyoming Department of Health is performing its federally mandated eligibility review for the services. The state paused that annual effort during the pandemic while the feds temporarily bolstered Medicaid funds to help cover extra enrollees.

Of those removed from the rolls, 12,380 — nearly 70% — lost access due to “procedural reasons,” like failing to return renewal paperwork. About three quarters of those procedural removals were children, according to health department spokesperson Kim Deti.

Minors make up the largest share of this publicly insured population, she added.

Another 5,336 people lost coverage because they were deemed no longer eligible due to issues like wages being too high, aging out or moving out of state.

History

The Trump administration issued two COVID-19 emergency declarations during the pandemic, opening up new resources and flexibility to states around the country.

The federal government also gave states more money for Medicaid with the guarantee that people wouldn’t lose coverage until those emergency declarations ended.

Then in December 2022, Congress authorized states to start phasing people off Medicaid the following April if they no longer qualified. The Biden administration then ended the emergency declarations in May 2023.

In February 2023, the Wyoming Department of Health estimated that about 10,000-15,000 people would lose coverage during its review.

In August, federal officials asked states — including Wyoming — to change their renewal process because too many people were losing coverage when they shouldn’t.

After the health department changed its auto-renewal process and received additional federal approvals — as well as more responses to renewal requests — the number of people who lost coverage in Wyoming dropped from more than 10,000 last summer to about 9,000 through September.

Who said what?

The health department did the best it could with a difficult situation, said Wyoming Hospital Association President Eric Boley.

“It’s a real difficult process because you’re dealing with a population that may move quite a bit and may not have real accurate information,” he said. “I think it’s just kind of a perfect storm that created this situation.”

At the same time, he said, having more uninsured people exacerbates an already significant and growing challenge for hospitals — uncompensated care, or services a facility provides that it’s not reimbursed for. That issue has grown out of a mix of factors, including having uninsured and underinsured residents, higher deductibles, and higher out-of-pocket costs.

The problem is compounded by people avoiding preventative care, he said, costing hospitals and patients more in the long run.

Ultimately, Boley hopes people who’ve lost their insurance find a way to get covered again.

What’s next

People who’ve lost coverage for procedural reasons have 90 days from their disenrollment to provide the required information and regain coverage, according to Deti.

“If found to still be eligible, coverage can be backdated for up to 90 days,” she said in an email. “There is an appeals process for people who think the eligibility determination was incorrect. Plus, people can reapply at any point if their situation has changed or if it’s past the 90-day redetermination period.

As of March, there were still 77,853 people using Medicaid and Kids Care Chip in Wyoming, compared to 90,092 people at the same time last year.

WyoFile is an independent nonprofit news organization focused on Wyoming people, places and policy.

This story was posted on May 3, 2024.