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Medicaid coverage reviews to begin following a long pandemic pause

In 2015, Medicaid spending topped $552 billion nationwide. People who receive both Medicaid and Medicare and people with disabilities account for more than half of Medicaid spending.
Katarzyna Bialasiewicz/Getty Images/iStockphoto
To ensure all Medicaid members receive a notice, DHS's MedQUEST Division is asking residents to update their contact information. They say that it can be done by calling the number on the back of most insurance cards.

Almost half a million residents in the state of Hawaiʻi are signed up for Medicaid coverage.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the state Department of Human Services stopped doing reviews of Medicaid beneficiaries as a part of the federal emergency response. For the past two years, residents were allowed to have uninterrupted Medicaid coverage.

But as temporary pandemic-era services begin to wind down, states are being asked to restart the review and renewal process for Medicaid members to determine if they are still eligible.

For Hawaiʻi, DHS will begin the process starting in April.

Due to the large number of residents receiving coverage, DHS will begin to send out notices in late March notifying Medicaid members of their new redetermination month and their next steps. In the meantime, residents will continue to receive uninterrupted Medicaid coverage.

To ensure all Medicaid members receive a notice, DHS's MedQUEST Division is asking residents to update their contact information. They say that it can be done by calling the number on the back of most insurance cards.

"You're not going to receive your notice, if we don't know where to send it. That would be the number one proactive thing you can do," said Meredith Nichols, the deputy director of the division.

Nichols told HPR that residents can expect the entire redetermination process to take a year. The department will be sending out two notices, a white and a pink letter.

The white letter will notify members of their new redetermination month, while the pink contains eligibility renewal information a month prior to their renewal month.

This means that not all members will receive their pink letter at the same time. However, the white letter will be sent out in March.

For those who are no longer eligible for Medicaid, Nichols said DHS will work with residents to continue receiving uninterrupted health coverage.

More information can be found on the state's Department of Human Services website.

Casey Harlow was an HPR reporter and occasionally filled in as local host of Morning Edition and All Things Considered.
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