State Medicaid Agencies Grapple With Moving PHE End Date

With the COVID-19 public health emergency presumably continuing into October, state Medicaid agencies and their partners theoretically have more time to communicate with enrollees and prepare for the inevitable resumption of eligibility redeterminations once the PHE ends. But ongoing uncertainty over the PHE’s end date presents a host of challenges for states as they handle unprecedented numbers of Medicaid enrollees and attempt to conduct other program work unrelated to redeterminations, according to officials from California, Iowa and North Carolina who spoke during a May 24 webinar hosted by the National Association of Medicaid Directors (NAMD).

Throughout the PHE, which was declared in January 2020 and first renewed that April, states have received a temporary 6.2 percentage-point increase in their Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) in exchange for maintaining continuous enrollment of nearly all Medicaid recipients. Once the PHE ends, states have 12 months to initiate eligibility reverifications for everyone enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP and 14 months overall to complete redetermination efforts.