The Biden administration wants to make sure states are doing all they can to minimize the number of Medicaid enrollees who wind up uninsured once states regain the ability to drop ineligible recipients next month.
The Department of Health and Human Services this week sent governors a letter warning them to adopt measures to curtail coverage losses, which could affect millions of people.
“I urge you to ensure that your state is implementing every possible option to prevent eligible individuals from losing coverage,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra wrote in bold in the letter, shared exclusively with CNN.
States risk losing augmented federal Medicaid funding for the rest of this year if they don’t comply with various requirements in their eligibility reviews, Becerra wrote. They must attempt to ensure that they have up-to-date contact information for enrollees and reach out to recipients via multiple methods before dropping coverage based on returned mail. Also, states have to report monthly renewals and terminations, among other metrics.