BISMARCK, N.D. – North Dakota Health and Human Services (HHS) is urging North Dakotans who receive Medicaid review/renewal forms to complete and return them within 30 days if they still qualify after thousands of people who were still eligible were disenrolled last month.
The department says about 13,100 ND Medicaid members were due for a renewal at the end of May and only about one in three members returned their forms, which means 4,421 people were disenrolled even though many may still qualify for coverage.
“Our goal is to maintain coverage for all people who remain eligible with a particular emphasis on children and people with disabilities,” said HHS interim Medical Services Division Director Krista Fremming.
HHS’ May data shows that most of those who did return their renewal form still qualified for coverage.
“The data shows a strong reason why households should return their renewal forms in the month they are due,” Fremming said. “We are also reminding members to turn in their renewal forms as soon as possible, to avoid the potential problem of being disenrolled if they still qualify.”
Individuals who were disenrolled have 90 days to return their renewal form and provide required information. If they qualify after a review, ND Medicaid will back date their coverage to when they were disenrolled.
Regular Medicaid renewals began in April. Over the course of the next 12 months, the department says human service zone offices will need to review eligibility for about 137,000 North Dakotans enrolled in ND Medicaid or the Medicaid Expansion program.
ND HHS says they’ve implemented an auto-renewal process to make it easier to verify if an individual still qualifies for coverage using federal income data and other approved data sources, but if the state cannot auto-renew an individual’s coverage for any reason, a renewal form will be sent, asking for more information around the 20th of each month. Those forms are due within 30 days and must be completed and returned either online through the Self-Service Portal, by mail or email or in-person at a human service zone office.
HHS has created a webpage, hhs.nd.gov/StayCoveredND, that has information about Medicaid renewals and how members can update their contact information, so they receive important information about their coverage.
Medicaid provides health care coverage to eligible low-income adults, children, pregnant women, elderly adults and people with disabilities. The program is jointly funded between states and the federal government. States administer the program based on federal requirements.
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