CommUnityCare Health Centers Continues Diligent Work to Ensure
Affected Medicaid Patients Renew Coverage
One year after Medicaid coverage unwinding, patients and health systems across the country continue to feel the effects of continuous Medicaid coverage ending.
“Patients received a letter in the mail letting them know if they had to go through that recertification process for Medicaid. The problem with that is because we had continuous Medicaid for three-plus years, some folks moved and didn’t get the envelope, others didn’t hear about it, or they didn’t understand why they received the envelope,” said CommUnityCare Chief Operating Officer, Nancy Ban. “So, we had many patients who did not know how to get back on Medicaid.”
Throughout the pandemic the federal government allowed people to continuously keep Medicaid enrollment as part of the COVID-19 public health emergency. In March 2023, that continuous coverage ended and caused millions of people to lose coverage. As a result, the state of Texas has been at the center of the Medicaid unwinding with more than 2 million enrollees losing benefits.
According to the HRSA Health Center Program Uniform Data System, nearly 40% of patients at CommUnityCare Health Centers receive services using Medicaid coverage. Due to the end of the continuous coverage, nearly 15,000 patients throughout the Federally Qualified Health Center were disenrolled from Medicaid.
Today, CommUnityCare Health Centers continues to diligently ensure its patients can access high-quality healthcare at its health centers.
“We’ve been calling patients to confirm their appointments, informing them of documents that need to be submitted, and making sure that they’re updating information, “said CommUnityCare Financial Screening Specialist, Marisol Garcia.
Ban adds that all Medicaid patients have received direct communication about continuous coverage ending, all front desk staff have been prompted with how to help patients, and extended weekend hours have been offered with financial screeners to help patients reenroll.
CommUnityCare Health Centers is also utilizing a third party named Resource Corporation of America and a partnership with Foundation Communities to help reenroll patients that it has been unable to reach.
“It is essential that our patients have coverage, even though we do not turn any of our patients away, we want to set up our patients for success even outside of our four walls,” added Ban. “We make sure that if our patients are not able to get on Medicaid for whatever reason, we have other options for them and our financial eligibility specialists can help them with receiving other assistance options,” added Ban.
For more information about renewing your Medicaid coverage, click here.