FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Amy Simmons Farber 202-309-0338
Bethesda, MD— One year after the termination of the pandemic-era policy allowing for continuous Medicaid enrollment, Community Health Centers, which serve 31.5 million patients nationwide, are feeling the impact. Nearly one in four (23%) of health center Medicaid patients are estimated to have lost their Medicaid coverage, according to a new joint survey from the National Association of Community Health Centers (NACHC) and Geiger Gibson Program in Community Health at Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington University.
Because outreach and enrollment work are fundamental to the Community Health Center mission, health center staff have been working with State Medicaid agencies to stay ahead of disenrollments, conduct outreach and get patients enrolled in alternate insurance when possible. Over 50% of health center patients who lost coverage have been forced to discontinue or postpone ongoing treatment, miss a scheduled appointment, or lose managed care network access to specialty, hospital, or other care needed outside the health center. The coverage losses among health center patients include nearly one in five children (18%) and one in four (27%) patients who suffer from a chronic illness. Health centers, which serve one in six Medicaid beneficiaries, also report an average of about $600,000 in revenue losses.
“Medicaid is the life blood of Community Health Centers and their ability to serve high-need urban, rural, frontier and island communities” said Kyu Rhee, MD, MPP, NACHC President and CEO. “Both coverage and access to affordable primary care services are essential to achieving health equity, improving population health, and lowering healthcare costs. Medicaid helps to assure people get necessary, life-saving primary care – from vaccines and cancer screenings to the outpatient management of acute and chronic conditions and the prevention of unnecessary hospitalizations, ER and specialty visits. We all suffer when people lose their Medicaid coverage with broad, deep, and longstanding impacts across families, communities, and the public health and healthcare system.”
Since states began the redetermination process last year, 19.2 million people have been disenrolled from Medicaid, according to KFF. Nearly 70% of people who have been dropped from Medicaid lost coverage due to procedural reasons. A growing population of uninsured patients at health centers also leads to increased costs for care delivery. Disenrollment can also harm patient health – especially the elderly, patients with chronic health conditions, and children. The Medicaid unwinding has added to the workload of health center staff, who play a key role in helping patients understand various public insurance options. They report spending an average of 1,600 hours helping patients navigate the enrollment process and deployed health navigators, Community Health Workers (CHWs), and other workers to assist.
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NACHC is the leading innovative change agent collaborating with affiliates and partners to advance Community Health Centers as the foundation of an equitable healthcare system free from disparities, and built on accessible, patient-governed, high-quality, integrated primary care.