Up to 236,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives are expected to lose Medicaid coverage after a provision that allowed for continuous enrollment in the program ended Saturday. The provision was enacted in 2020 to help individuals who were losing their jobs retain health insurance during the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now, the continuous enrollment provision has ended, and state Medicaid programs have returned to normal eligibility redetermination activities, meaning individuals can be disenrolled if they are deemed ineligible for coverage.
All Medicaid enrollees will be reviewed for eligibility over the next 12-14 months, so the disenrollments will be staggered across the country depending on each state program’s timeline and available resources, so some individuals will be disenrolled before others. The most important thing to pay attention to is your mail. Be on the lookout for mail coming from your state Medicaid program! They should be contacting you to update or verify your income, contact information, and more. If you have moved over the past three years, contact your state’s Medicaid office, and provide them your new information as soon as possible so you don’t miss anything that could impact your eligibility.
If you have questions about your coverage, please contact your local Indian Health Service (IHS),
Tribal, or Urban health facility so that a Tribal Enrollment Assister or Patient Benefit Coordinator can help you. You can also find out how to renew your Medicaid or CHIP coverage, how to find coverage through the Health Insurance Marketplace if you no longer qualify for Medicaid, and how to contact your state’s Medicaid office through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) Division of Tribal Affairs HERE.
For more information and additional resources on Medicaid unwinding process, please visit NIHB’s Medicaid Unwinding webpage. For questions about how to effectively educate and inform your community on the unwinding, please contact NIHB’s Tribal Health Care Outreach and Education Policy Coordinator, Kristen Bitsuie at kbitsuie@nihb.org or 202-507-4084.
