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Medicaid enrollment falls

Patient Financial Services Weekly Advisor, October 19, 2007

Medicaid enrollment fell for the first time in a decade for the fiscal year that ended June 30, according to a report by the Associated Press.

A survey - conducted by Vernon Smith of Health Management Associates - reports enrollment fell 0.5% in the federal-state program that provides health coverage to 58 million people with certain income limits.

It also reports the second smallest increase in Medicaid spending (2.9 percent). Most Medicaid state directors - about 75% - attributed the decrease to new rules that say potential beneficiaries must provide documentation to prove their citizenship. Before, a simple check in a box would do the trick.

"It was a tremendous burden on us, and it was certainly a burden on consumers," Andrew Allison, the Medicaid director for Kansas, tells the Associated Press of the new documentation requirement. Allison says the documentation requirements led to a decline of about 20,000 children in Kansas.

But Medicaid officials dispute the new-documentation theory, citing a strong economy as reason for the reduction.

"As far as we can see through reviews with the states, the documentation requirement has had no impact," says Dennis Smith, director of the Center for Medicaid and State Operations.

The survey took place in July and August, soon after most states finished their fiscal years for 2007.

It attributed the spending increase of 2.9 percent to higher reimbursement rates for healthcare providers like doctors, hospitals and nursing homes. The Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured helped collect and analyze data on the survey.

To read the full story in the Associated Press, click here.

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