by Camalot Todd, Nevada Current
Some Nevadans have started to lose Medicaid benefits with the end of a pandemic era expansion of coverage, and state agencies are trying to renew coverage for those who are eligible, or enroll those who aren’t in the state health insurance exchange.
Last week officials with Nevada Health Link, the state’s public health care marketplace, joined counterparts from the Division of Welfare and Supportive Services (DWSS) and Nevada Medicaid to bring attention to the Medicaid redetermination process that will be ongoing over the next year.
“Our goal is to make sure that Nevadans, who are no longer eligible for Medicaid, don’t experience a lapse in coverage, and they get the information that they need to enroll in other insurance,” said Janel Davis, the chief operations officer at Nevada Health Link.
Nearly one-third of all Nevadans receive health care through Medicaid or CHIP, growing significantly during the pandemic. State officials estimate roughly 200,000 Nevadans who became enrolled in Medicaid during the health emergency could lose coverage.
When Congress enacted the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, it included a requirement that Medicaid programs keep people continuously enrolled through the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency in exchange for federal funding in the legislation. But last December Congress removed the continuous enrollment provision from the public health emergency ending on March 31, and phased down the funding when it passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023.
During the deconstruction of the continuous enrollment provision, it’s anticipated that millions of Americans will lose their health care coverage, with older adults, people who have moved, immigrants, people with disabilities, and people with limited English proficiency being at an increased risk of losing Medicaid coverage or experiencing a gap in coverage due to barriers completing the enrollment process, according to a KFF brief.
Nevada will be releasing monthly renewal data and state agencies will analyze it to understand where gaps exist for those who are not renewed or lose their Medicaid benefits, Davis said.
“This has obviously been an unprecedented in nature situation for all of our agencies and we’ll continue to remain transparent with the public in the media as far as the data is concerned. That’s really important to us, but keeping Nevadans insured is our highest priority,” she said. “We’re really, really early in this process. So we only have one month under our belts and we are working on the analysis of this data.”
DWSS started sending out renewal packets in April and the process of determining renewal can take between 2-3 months. While the data on how many Nevadans were up for renewal was not immediately available, 94% of Nevadans who lost Medicaid coverage in April and May were eligible for a plan through Nevada Health Link and 74% of those individuals received subsidies.
Households up to 138% of the federal poverty level – $16,753 per year for an individual and $34,638 per year for a family of four – may qualify for Medicaid in Nevada..
Nevadans who did not respond to the renewal or no longer qualify for Medicaid based on income started to lose their benefits on June 1, but may qualify for tax credits or subsidies through Nevada Health Link.
People who are up for renewal can check that their address is updated by visiting the Update My Address website. For questions about Medicaid renewal, visit www.medicaid.nv.gov, call (877) 638-3472, or visit a local Medicaid office. For more information about Nevada Health Link, visit NevadaHealthLink.com or call 1-800-547-2927. The Nevada Health Link Call Center is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
