On June 22, 2022, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) held its second monthly webinar on unwinding the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) flexibilities for Medicaid and CHIP program eligibility.
Beth Lynk, CMS, led the call, with remarks from Dan Tsai, Jessica Stephens, Dr. Ellen Montz, Jesse Cross-Call, Stefanie Costello (CMS); John Hammarlund (Department of Health & Human Services (HHS)); Jennifer Wagner and Farah Erzouki (Center on Budget on Policy Priorities (CBPP)); and Jacey Cooper and Yingjia Huang (California State Medicaid Office).
In March 2020, federal legislation established the “continuous enrollment condition,” which provided states with extra federal Medicaid funding in exchange for maintaining enrollments for all individuals through the end of the month the federal PHE ends. Many states implemented comparable policies that had a similar impact on CHIP. HHS intends to give at least 60 days’ notice prior to the end of the PHE. When the PHE ends, states will have 12 months to initiate renewals. Twenty million or more enrollees could lose their Medicaid or CHIP coverage upon the end of the PHE. In this webinar, CMS stakeholders discussed actions states and organizations that work with beneficiaries can take to prevent large losses of coverage.
Dan Tsai first discussed four areas CMS is considering as the agency prepares for the unwinding of the PHE: proactively communicating to make sure agencies and beneficiaries are prepared, providing communications resources for states, considering the Medicaid marketplace, and local engagement. CMS has developed online resources to support these efforts, including the Unwinding Communications Toolkit, which provides states with communication tools for outreach to beneficiaries with CHIP or Medicaid, and a beneficiary-focused webpage where organizations and states can refer beneficiaries for renewals.
Jennifer Wagner and Farah Erzouki provided state-focused information, and they emphasized strategies to maintain coverage for beneficiaries who are eligible for Medicaid but may be disenrolled for procedural reasons. Examples of state actions include Arkansas’s new call center to facilitate in outreach and updating beneficiary contact information, New Mexico’s investment of $35 million to help beneficiaries transition to the marketplace, and Tennessee’s digital ad campaign that doubled renewals in three months.
Jacey Cooper reviewed California’s proactive work, underscoring that large coverage losses are not inevitable if states do their share. Notably, California launched the Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) Coverage Ambassadors campaign, which now has more than 1,000 ambassadors to deliver important messages to beneficiaries in the community (available in English and Spanish). California has also published its Medi-Cal COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Operational Unwinding Plan. The state split its PHE unwinding communications strategy into two phases. The first phase will include a multi-channel communications campaign to encourage beneficiaries to update their contact information. The second phase, which will be launched 60 days prior to the end of the PHE, will encourage beneficiaries to watch for their renewal packets in the mail.
Throughout the webinar, CMS reiterated its commitment to communication and engagement with state Medicaid agencies and other organizations serving Medicaid beneficiaries. CMS staff offered to connect organizations that serve Medicaid beneficiaries with their Medicaid state agencies and noted that organizations may request a CMS representative for speaking engagements at upcoming events. Additionally, HHS and CMS are focusing on local engagement. Jesse Cross-Call shared CMS regional administrators’ and HHS directors’ emails for each of ten federal regions. These regional staff are looking for feedback throughout the process, including information beneficiaries need and do not have and potential additions to the toolkit. Future webinars will provide more detail on local-level outreach and engagement. Jessica Stephens noted that while large enrollment numbers, agency staffing challenges, and communications barriers will challenge states, CMS will continue to develop resources and toolkits to support states.
CMS will post a recording and transcript of the webinar to the CMS National Stakeholder Calls webpage. Additional resources on unwinding the PHE can be found here for states and providers and here for Medicaid and CHIP enrollees. The next webinar will be held on July 27, 2022, at 12:00pm EST, and it will focus on the marketplace. Monthly webinars are scheduled through December 2022.
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This Applied Policy® Summary was prepared by Emma Hammer with support from the Applied Policy team of health policy experts. If you have any questions or need more information, please contact her at ehammer@appliedpolicy.com or at 202-558-5272.