PHE ENDING IN MAY
Earlier this week, the Biden Administration announced that the Public Health Emergency (PHE) would be extended until May 11, 2023. At that point, the administration plans to end the PHE.
The end of the PHE has ramifications for Medicare, Medicaid and private insurance – especially in the area of COVID-19 testing, vaccinations and treatment. To learn more about the implications of the end of the PHE, check out the report from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The Georgetown Center for Children and Families also has a new blog post and which examines what the end of the PHE means for Medicaid and CHIP.
Originally, the end of the PHE also meant an end of the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement. However, as part of Congress’s year-end spending package, the continuous coverage requirement will end independently of the PHE on April 1. To learn more about this, check out our news item.
While the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement is set to end April 1, states can already start redeterminations for eligibility. With the impending end of the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement, CMS recently updated their communications toolkit on what beneficiaries need to know and do to prepare for the upcoming redeterminations.
As the end of the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement approaches, CMS has announced that those individuals who lose coverage due to a Medicaid redetermination will be eligible for a Special Enrollment Period (SEP) to enroll in a plan through the ACA Marketplace. This SEP will be available for all those who lose Medicaid coverage from March 31, 2023 through July 31, 2024. To learn more, check out the CMS announcement.
If you want to learn more about the end of the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has announced that they will be holding a webinar on Tuesday, February 21, 2023 at 2:00 PM ET. Registration is now open for that webinar.
While Open Enrollment Year 10 (OE10) has ended, that doesn’t mean that there still isn’t an opportunity to get covered. For instance, did you know that certain life events can create a Special Enrollment Period (SEP) when individuals can enroll? As part of our partnership with Community Catalyst, we have a project which highlights opportunities for people with disabilities to get access to health coverage through Medicaid or the ACA marketplace. As part of this project, they have graphics like the one below which highlight one SEP – those who have recently gotten married. These graphics are available in the Community Catalyst Outreach Hub.
If you missed it last week, we highlighted the final enrollment numbers for OE10. In total, over 16.3 million individuals selected plans on the ACA marketplaces during OE10. To learn more or for links to the CMS fact sheet and press release, check out our news item.
While January 15 was the deadline in most states for Open Enrollment Year 10 (OE10), there is one state that still has ongoing open enrollment. States which operate with their own state-based marketplace (SBM) have the ability to change the date when open enrollment ends. For a list of all the SBMs with different OE10 deadlines, check out our news item.
The Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms (CHIR) recently posted in their blog about what some states are doing to maintain access to preventive services.
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