State Medicaid enrollment closing in on 73,000

Enrollment in the state's expanded Medicaid program rose to almost 73,000 as of Monday, an increase of more than 3,300 from nine days earlier, a spokesman for the Arkansas Department of Human Services said Tuesday.

Separately, a spokesman for Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield said about 85 percent of the 8,600 people who have enrolled for coverage starting last Wednesday with the company or its national affiliate have paid their first month's premium, which is required for the coverage to take effect.

The companies extended the deadline for paying the premium until Jan. 31 -- three weeks later than the extended deadline announced last month by a national health-insurance trade group.

The expansion of the state's Medicaid program, authorized by the federal health-care overhaul law and approved by the Legislature last 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 starting last Wednesday. Enrollment began Oct. 1.

The enrollment total as of Monday included 66,063 people who will receive coverage through private plans on Arkansas' health insurance exchange, with the premium paid by Medicaid dollars.

An additional 6,760 approved applicants were assigned to the traditional fee-for-service Medicaid program because they were considered to have exceptional health needs.

Of those who are enrolled in private plans, 15,779 used a state website, insureark.org, to choose a plan, and 50,284 were automatically assigned to a plan because they failed to choose one within 12 days of being notified that their application was approved.

Applicants who are automatically assigned to a plan have 30 days in which they can change plans. After that, the next opportunity to change plans is after one year.

Human Services Department spokesman Amy Webb said that more than 40,000 other Arkansans had applied for coverage under the expanded program as of Saturday, raising the total number who have applied to 112,960.

"For us, surpassing 100,000 applicants is a pretty significant milestone," Webb said.

Of those who have applied, 85,328 had been approved for coverage under the expanded Medicaid program as of Saturday, although more than 12,000 of them had not completed the enrollment process.

About 63,000 of those who applied did so in response to a letter sent in September to recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as food stamps, who the department had determined were eligible for coverage under the expanded Medicaid program.

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, 9,295 Arkansans applied to the federal government through a federal website, healthcare.gov, by calling the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or by mailing an application to the federal agency.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has also sent Arkansas information on more than 4,000 other applicants who were approved for Medicaid coverage by the federal agency. The Human Services Department is still reviewing that information and did not include those applicants in the totals announced Tuesday.

Arkansas first began receiving information on applications submitted to the federal agency on Dec. 20.

Eventually, the Human Services Department expects to be able to receive information on applications approved by the federal agency almost instantly, which would speed up the enrollment process, Webb said.

Arkansas is one of 10 states helping the federal agency test a system for transferring the information, she said.

Applicants who don't qualify for Medicaid, but have incomes below 400 percent of the poverty level, may be eligible for federal tax credit subsidies to help pay their premium for a plan on the exchange.

The income threshold for those subsidies is $45,960 for an individual or $94,200 for a family of four. To qualify, an applicant 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.

The deadline for enrolling in coverage that started last Wednesday was initially Dec. 15, but federal officials pushed that back to Dec. 24 because of software glitches and other problems with healthcare.gov.

America's Health Insurance Plans also announced last month that it supported giving enrollees until this Friday to pay their first month's premium.

Arkansas Blue Cross spokesman Max Greenwood said Tuesday that the company began advising applicants late last month that they would have until Jan. 31 to pay the premium for January. About 6,100 people are enrolled in plans offered by the company or its national affiliate, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, on Arkansas' exchange. An additional 2,500 enrolled directly with Arkansas Blue Cross in unsubsidized plans for coverage starting last Wednesday.

A spokesman for Little Rock-based QualChoice Health Insurance said about a quarter of the 1,100 people who had enrolled in the company's plans as of last week had paid their first month's premium as of Tuesday. The QualChoice premiums are due Friday.

Kalena Jones, director of the Arkansas Health Care Access Foundation in Little Rock, said Tuesday that her organization's five outreach workers had helped about 40 people apply for coverage since last Wednesday-- the same number the organization helped during all of December.

Most of those the organization helped were eligible for coverage under the state's expanded Medicaid program and applied through access.arkansas.gov, Jones said.

Although the deadline has already passed to enroll for coverage starting last Wednesday, Jones said applicants are now focused on signing up by next Wednesday, the last day to sign up for coverage starting Feb. 1.

"They're trying to catch this next deadline," she said.

Metro on 01/08/2014

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