Correction: For those made eligible by the expansion of Arkansas’ Medicaid program, the program will cover three months of past medical expenses up to as early as Jan. 1, when coverage under the expanded program starts. This article was unclear about the earliest date for which the program will cover past medical expenses.
Enrollment in Arkansas’ expanded Medicaid program rose to more than 68,000 as of Saturday, up from about 67,000 a week earlier, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services said Thursday.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the state’s largest health-insurance company said that just over 6,000 people had used a federal website to sign up for coverage that will start Wednesday in plans offered by the company or its national affiliate.
The expansion of the Medicaid program, authorized by the federal healthcare overhaul law and approved by the Legislature this year, extended eligibility to adults with incomes of up to 138 percent of the poverty level - $15,860 for an individual or $32,500 for a family of four.
The change made about 250,000 people eligible for coverage that will start Wednesday. Enrollment began Oct. 1.
Enrollment in the program as of Saturday included 62,148 people who will receive coverage through private insurance plans sold on the state’s health-insurance exchange and have their premiums paid by Medicaid.
It also included 5,930 people who were assigned to the traditional fee-for-service Medicaid program because they were determined to have exceptional health needs.
The enrollment totals include about 63,000 recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Pro-gram, also known as food stamps, who responded to letters they received in September notifying them that they had been deemed eligible for Medicaid coverage.
Others submitted initial applications through a state website, access.arkansas.gov, sent in paper applications or submitted applications to the Human Services Department over the phone.
In addition, department spokesman Amy Webb said, on Monday the department received information on thousands of applications for Medicaid coverage that were submitted through the federal enrollment portal, healthcare.gov.
The federal government has determined the eligibility of those who applied, but the state Human Services Department is sorting the data to weed out duplicate applications and correct other problems, Webb said.
The data also do not list the applicants’ counties, information that the Human Services Department needs to know to determine which plans on the exchange each recipient can choose from. The Human Services Department is adding that information, Webb said.
“As it stands today, it’s not in a form where we can easily complete the enrollment process,” Webb said.
Once the application information is corrected, the department will send notices to those who are eligible, directing them to another state website, insureark.org, where the applicants can complete enrollment.
An applicant who fails to complete his enrollment within 12 days of receiving his notice of eligibility is automatically assigned to a plan on the exchange. He then will have 30 days in which he can change plans.
Webb said she didn’t know how long it would take to sort the data from healthcare.gov.
“We’re just now getting the data from the feds, and its not quite in the shape that we hoped it would be in, so we’re going to have to do some work to get people enrolled,” Webb said. “We’ll do it as quickly as we can, but we also want to do it in a way that the data is accurate.”
She noted that, for those who are found eligible for Medicaid, the Human Services Department will pay for up to three months of past medical expenses dating back to as early as Wednesday.
For those signing up for Medicaid-funded private plans, the traditional fee-for-service Medicaid program covers medical expenses until coverage under the private plan kicks in.
Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield spokesman Max Greenwood said Thursday that just over 6,000 people who did not qualify for Medicaid had used healthcare.gov to sign up for plans offered by Arkansas Blue Cross or its national affiliate, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, in time for coverage that will start Wednesday.
Coverage under those plans is subsidized through federal tax credits for those who have incomes of less than 400 percent of the poverty level - $45,960 for an individual or $94,200 for a family of four. Each applicant for the tax credits also must not have access to employer-provided coverage that is considered affordable, meaning it would cost less than 9.5 percent of the person’s income.
A study released in November by the Menlo Park, Calif.,-based Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that 150,000 Arkansans are eligible for the tax credits.
The deadline to enroll for coverage that starts Wednesday was initially Dec. 15, but federal officials extended it to Dec. 23 after glitches with the U.S. website prevented many people from being able to sign up during October.
Officials then extended the deadline an additional day, to Christmas Eve, and said they would allow appeals from those who believe they were prevented by technical issues from meeting the deadline.
QualChoice Health Insurance spokesman Mike Stock said last week that fewer than 1,000 people had signed up through the website for plans offered by his company.
A company spokesman said Thursday that she did not have an updated enrollment total.
A spokesman for Centene Corp., which is offering plans on the exchange through a subsidiary, Arkansas Health and Wellness Solutions, didn’t return a call Thursday seeking information about enrollment in that company’s plans.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/27/2013