Over 710K Medicaid Enrollees Lost Coverage Through April, CMS Reports

More than 710,000 people lost their Medicaid or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) coverage in April, and about 55,000 of those individuals have transitioned to Affordable Care Act marketplace coverage, according to CMS’s first data release on the restarted Medicaid eligibility redeterminations process. Starting April 1, states were permitted to start disenrolling people from Medicaid who no longer qualify after a multiyear pause during the COVID-19 public health emergency.

Of the 2.2 million enrollees due for renewal in April across 18 states, 45.5% had their coverage renewed, with more than 55% receiving automatic renewals. About one-third of the group lost their coverage, and 79% of those coverage losses were due to procedural reasons — meaning individuals didn’t return their renewal form within a specific time frame or the state was unable to reach them.