Latest news with #MOHealthNet
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Republicans' new Medicaid red tape will push Missouri to the brink and block healthcare for millions
New paperwork and work rules for Medicaid will impose new burdens on state government systems (Getty Images). This week, Senators have started their consideration of President Trump's big tax bill, which was passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May. Missouri U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley was clear in his priorities for the legislation, writing in early May that 'slashing health insurance for the working poor is … both morally wrong and politically suicidal.' President Donald Trump was blunter, telling lawmakers not to 'f**k around with Medicaid.' The bill passed by the House, does not pass their test – it does not, as Trump and Hawley claim, contain 'NO MEDICAID BENEFIT CUTS.' Instead, it will kick millions of people off of Medicaid by piling on new red tape. And it will bury under-resourced state Medicaid offices in so much paperwork that they will be at risk of collapse. Together, these forces will mean that eligible Americans in Missouri and around the country will not have access to their Medicaid. Many will be left without health care as they prepare to bring a child into the world, face a new cancer diagnosis, or manage a chronic illness. In other words, if this bill passes, Medicaid will be cut for Missourians when they most need it. The House bill imposes new bureaucratic requirements on Medicaid beneficiaries, forcing them to file piles of new paperwork about their jobs, schools, disabilities, or sick family members to keep the health insurance they are already eligible for under the law. These so-called 'work requirements' do not boost employment as advertised – experiments in other states have repeatedly failed to do so. This is, in part, because the vast majority of Medicaid beneficiaries who can work already do. That makes sense – you can't buy food and pay rent with a health insurance card. The reason this bill reduces the cost of Medicaid by billions of dollars is that it assumes regular people will get tangled in the red tape of proving they are eligible for Medicaid. Experts project that over 10 million eligible people will lose their health care because of all the paperwork, including over 180,000 Missourians. But we believe that even this prognosis is too optimistic. Most analyses only consider the difficulty that people will have proving that they are entitled to Medicaid under the law, but not the difficulty states will have in administering the new paperwork requirements. We have spent the last several years modernizing the systems that deliver benefits to millions of Americans, including Medicaid. What we have learned is that state Medicaid systems, including MO HealthNet, are already on the brink – and lack the resources and resilience to take on the onslaught of requirements and deadlines about to hit them. Trump's tax legislation, the new requirements it imposes, and the lightning-fast timeline it requires, are setting Medicaid up for a collapse. Here's how it could play out. States are responsible for determining Medicaid eligibility. They allow people to enroll in one of four ways – by mailing in documents, enrolling online, applying over the phone, or walking into a physical office. Each of these pathways is already at a tipping point. Medicaid agencies around the country have staff vacancies as high as 30 percent, which means there are already too few workers to open mail, process applications, answer the phones, and staff walk-in centers. As a result, even under the current system, eligible people can see their Medicaid lapse because their paperwork is not processed in time. Missourians have recent experience with the effects of an overburdened Medicaid system. By law, Medicaid applications are supposed to be processed in 45 days, but as of last May, Missouri missed that deadline 72% of the time – the worst record in the nation – causing the federal government to step in to help for the second time in two years. The wait time on the Medicaid call center was 56 minutes in February 2024. The House bill will immediately explode the workload for state Medicaid offices. Medicaid beneficiaries will need to prove their eligibility twice a year instead of annually. And then it piles on the new paperwork rules. Missouri will have to figure out how to verify that a beneficiary is working, going to school, or meeting the new requirements some other way. They'll need to send out millions of paper notices, emails, and text messages to notify enrollees about the changes and train staff to handle the deluge of documents that will flood in. Just hours before the bill passed, Congress quietly moved up the deadline for states to make these changes, requiring implementation by the end of 2026 or sooner. And all this new bureaucracy rests on technology that is already failing. We've seen just how broken states' health care infrastructure is – Luke helped uncover state software errors that improperly terminated coverage for nearly 500,000 eligible kids across 29 states after the pandemic. The added strain imposed by this legislation will crash websites, jam call centers, and trigger even more software errors – trapping working people in the chaos. Under these conditions, failure isn't just likely — it's inevitable. We don't need to guess at how this plays out. When Arkansas tried to implement Medicaid work requirements in 2018 the results were disastrous. People received confusing instructions about how to prove they were working and many never knew about the requirement. The state's website repeatedly crashed. In the end, more than 18,000 people lost coverage, employment rates did not budge, and the state wasted $26 million on a failed experiment. In some states, that will mean lines around the block at overwhelmed county offices. In others, dropped calls, system outages, and piles of unprocessed renewals. These challenges compound. When the website breaks, you call. When your call drops, you drive to the office. Attrition will spike as the overmatched Medicaid staff are increasingly under siege, overtime is mandatory, and time off is cancelled. Smaller and smaller numbers of staff will bear larger and larger workloads until the system collapses. And, eligible Americans – working adults, kids, seniors, students, and adults with illnesses and disabilities – will still have no Medicaid. Hospitals will provide more uncompensated coverage, putting some – especially rural hospitals and children's hospitals – at risk of failure. This bill sets up state Medicaid agencies to fail at their most basic task – ensuring that eligible people have health insurance. It doesn't matter to a pregnant mom why her Medicaid is cut, she is going to miss prenatal visits and skip her toddler's check-up. If Hawley wants to stand up for over one million Missourians who rely on Medicaid, he should oppose this bill. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
27-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
New dental clinic for MO Medicaid recipients opens in Lamar
LAMAR, Mo. — Medicaid recipients in southwest Missouri have a new option when it comes to dental services. Access Family Care recently opened its first dental clinic in Lamar, specifically for those on Missouri Medicaid — also known as MO HealthNet. The dental clinic is meant to serve Medicaid recipients in Barton County and the surrounding rural areas. It's the only dental facility in Barton County that only accepts Missouri Medicaid. According to the latest census data, nearly a quarter of all Barton County residents receive the needs-based health care coverage — which is among the highest in the state of Missouri. 'We found out people who were traveling to Bolivar, some people are going to Kansas City, some people are even going to northwest Arkansas to get dental care from Barton County, some from Dade County, too, which is east of here. So, we knew there was a need and we've just been trying to work on how we can serve that, because a lot of our patients really have struggles with transportation,' said Access Family Care Public Relations Director, Steve Douglas. 'To get those providers in our county and to have a segment of our population have access to that, that otherwise struggles to get access. Fantastic,' said Barton County Health Department Administrator, Joel Dermott. Access Family Care Dental Clinic in Lamar provides general dentistry services, with a full-time Doctor of Dental Medicine and two hygienists. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Director of Missouri's long-troubled public assistance agency announces retirement
Kim Evans, center, announced Friday she was retiring from her position as director of the Family Support Division. She's pictured here speaking to the media in Jefferson City on March 28, 2023, about Medicaid renewals, alongside MO HealthNet director Todd Richardson, right, and former department director, Robert Knodell (Clara Bates/Missouri Independent). The head of the Missouri agency that for years has struggled to administer public benefit programs like food assistance and Medicaid announced her retirement on Friday afternoon, effective immediately. Kim Evans had served as director of the Family Support Division within the Missouri Department of Social Services since 2020. She spent over two decades working for the department, including as a program eligibility specialist, manager and deputy director. '(The Department of Social Services) is grateful for her service and wishes her the best in the next chapter,' Baylee Watts, the department's spokeswoman, said in an email. The interim director will be Mandi Adams, who is currently one of the division's deputy directors. Evans' departure last week is the latest in a series of leadership changes underway at Missouri's embattled social services agency since Gov. Mike Kehoe was elected in November. A new department director, Jessica Bax, began in January, and a new director for the child welfare division, Sara Smith, was named last week. Federal court rules Missourians were illegally denied food aid by the state During Evans' tenure, the department faced criticism from state lawmakers, the federal government and advocacy organizations over its administration of public benefits — which affect the lives of millions of Missourians. A federal judge last year ruled Missourians were illegally denied food aid by the state due to hours-long call center wait times for participants to receive a required interview. Those delays — which leadership has largely blamed on call center staffing issues — translate to families struggling to feed their young children while rearranging their days to wait on hold, Missourians with disabilities who can't understand the application forms being unable to get help and some subsisting on little food while using up prepaid phone minutes on hold. 'While call wait times fluctuate and have shown some improvement, the record demonstrates too little progress,' the judge in that case, U.S. District Court Judge M. Douglas Harpool, wrote last year. 'Consequently, Missourians who suffer food insecurity have been forced to either go hungry or seek alternative sources of food when their applications are denied.' The state has been required to submit monthly reports as part of the lawsuit. The average wait time for the interview line for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, was 45 minutes in January, the most recent monthly data states. The average wait time for the general call line, which handles all other inquiries — for programs including Medicaid, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and non-interview related SNAP queries — was just under one hour in January. That case is still ongoing, and the parties are in mediation. Missouri children are losing Medicaid coverage at rate that is alarming pediatricians The department in its budget request to the state legislature asked for $11 million to hire 220 new staff in the Family Support Division to help ensure the agency complies with federal and state rules on timely processing, and 'maintains a reasonable wait time in the call centers,' the budget request stated. The governor recommended only 55 new positions. Asked about the call center issues in a Senate appropriations committee hearing last month, Bax was candid about the ongoing problems, stating that over 10,000 applications for SNAP were rejected solely due to failure to interview in January. Bax told the committee the agency is looking at 'overall efficiencies' including trying to get a shortened and condensed SNAP interview approved, and specializing some of the call center staff. 'So that is where the plan is: to really kind of take back those specialized teams and then have an ability to condense that interview so that we can free up the phone lines,' Bax said. Democratic state Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern of Kansas City said she continues to hear from constituents about their issues accessing aid to which they're entitled. 'This is one of the things that I continue to have very grave concerns about,' Nurrenbern said at last months's appropriations committee hearing. 'How long people are waiting online for essential services, and hear a lot of frustration from constituents reaching out and saying, 'I've been waiting online all day and nobody's getting back to us.' 'So I really hope that this is something that this committee can put some emphasis on and making sure that we are being as efficient as possible with these services,' she added. Bax replied that she 'could not agree more.' Bax's testimony differed from prior testimony of Evans, who typically downplayed issues with wait times to legislators. At one hearing in late 2023, Evans told lawmakers she was 'excited' the wait time was only a few minutes the morning of a hearing, though records obtained by The Independent would later show the average that month was actually over an hour. There have also been years-long problems with Medicaid application processing, leading to issues like pregnant Missourians going without prenatal care. Last summer, the federal Medicaid agency announced it was intervening to help bring the state back into compliance with timely processing. Bax said last month, regarding some Medicaid cases, 'we're about three months behind on the applications.' According to data for January, the average time to process Medicaid applications for aged, blind and disabled applications was 107 days. The federal limit is 90 days for those applications. The average for the other category of Medicaid applications was 29 days, climbing in recent months but still below the 45-day standard. Bax also said last month the department is looking at using contractors to help with annual Medicaid renewals. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
05-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
It's Your Call for March 5
More opportunities with three To the person who said that there are more opportunities with two high schools, where did you learn math? With three high schools, you have 33 boys on the field playing football, with two high schools you have 22. You got 15 boys and 15 girls playing basketball, with two high schools you've got 10. I could go on and on. There are more opportunities with three schools than with two. Our new enemy America now has a new 'Public Enemy #1,' Donald J. Trump. That's illegal The ambush harassment of the Zelenskyy in the Oval Office last week was most shameful thing I've ever seen a president do. Now he's impounding funds for Ukraine that were appropriated by Congress. That is illegal. It is also unconstitutional. Something's up with the supply I see they keep saying that our chickens have a avian flu. They have slaughtered millions of chickens. Or are they just trying to interfere with our food supply? Something to think about, huh? Pay attention I was just calling to let people know that if they're receiving their health care here in Missouri through MO HealthNet, that is Missouri's name for Medicaid, and they should be paying attention to what's happening in Washington, D.C. regarding Medicare and Medicaid.
Yahoo
27-02-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
House passes bill to expand hearing aid access under Missouri Medicaid
State Rep. Cameron Parker presents her bill to expand hearing aid access under Medicaid on the House floor Tuesday (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications). The Missouri House voted overwhelmingly Thursday to expand coverage for hearing aids and cochlear implants for adults enrolled in Medicaid. The bill now heads to the Senate for consideration. Currently, Medicaid in Missouri, which is called MO HealthNet, only covers hearing aids for eligible children, pregnant women and blind people. The bill, sponsored by Republican state Rep. Cameron Parker of Campbell, would expand coverage to all individuals on Medicaid. Medicaid is the federal health care program for low-income and disabled Americans, which is administered by the states. 'Hearing loss affects many, many people, including many of our own family members,' Parker said during House debate of the bill on Thursday. 'The ability to hear and communicate is critical to a person's independence, and the benefits of these services will affect many Missourians.' In a press conference Thursday, Parker shared a story of a constituent with hearing loss who was unable to get her hearing aids repaired after she turned 18. 'She was working at the local McDonald's, and she could not afford to get her hearing aids fixed. And so then she got fired from McDonald's,' Parker said. 'So she lost her independence. She lost her ability to support her family or help support her family.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE State Rep. Jo Doll, a St. Louis Democrat who sponsored similar legislation this year, said many members of the Missouri House benefit from hearing aids. 'And we know that those hearing aids provide an increased quality of life for the people that need them and have them. So I would encourage you to vote yes on this bill and make sure that everybody in Missouri can access the same devices that we have,' she said. It was approved by the House by a vote of 148 to 8. There was no opposition voiced in Thursday's debate, but in previous years, there has been some concern around the cost. The eight in opposition Thursday were Republicans. The fiscal note estimates that 15,915 Medicaid enrollees would seek out hearing aid services if the bill passes. Due to 'pent-up demand,' the fiscal note states, many of those individuals may seek services in the first year they become available, which would be fiscal year 2026. The fiscal note estimates a cost of up to $10.6 million that year, and up to $2.8 million in the following year. The majority of that would be in federal funding. In the public hearing on the bill in January, Parker said: 'I realize there are some costs to this, but I do believe that the benefit of these services, the hearing instruments, the cochlear implants, outweigh the cost greatly.' Doll added that hearing aids may save the state money in the long run by helping reduce the risk of dementia and keeping individuals out of nursing homes. Rep. Ann Kelley, a Republican from Lamar, said her husband has hearing issues and wouldn't have succeeded professionally without hearing aids. 'I know this has got a massive fiscal note,' Kelley said, 'and this is one of those instances where we have to think beyond the fiscal note, and how much it's going to help.' Last year, the bill was voted out of the House by a vote of 149 to 3, and passed a Senate committee but never came up for a vote in the Senate, which Doll said was due to the Senate's dysfunction in the final days of session. No one testified in opposition to the bill in the public hearing held in January. Dr. Kate Sinks, director of audiology at the Center for Hearing and Speech in St. Louis, testified at the public hearing in January that 36 states already offer full coverage under Medicaid for hearing aids and cochlear implants for adults. Sinks said that she has heard thousands of stories from patients about how hearing devices have 'changed their lives, from going to the symphony, to getting their dream jobs, reconnecting with family, being able to run a simple errand independently, and even hearing the alarm when their home caught fire.' Mallory Rusch from anti-poverty advocacy organization Empower Missouri told the committee the cost of a hearing aid ranges from $1,000 to $4,000. Yet an individual qualifying for Medicaid in Missouri makes no more than $21,597 per year. For a family of four, the annual income cap to qualify for Medicaid is just under $43,000. 'I would invite you to consider your own families' annual income and expenses,' Rusch said, 'and then consider if you feel like an individual or family earning that low of an income could manage to be able to afford a $2,500 medical bill on average, just to be able to hear.' Christina Koehler, an audiologist, said it is 'extremely heartbreaking' to see people age out of coverage. 'And they do become less involved in society,' she added. Dr. Kristen Lewis, audiologist at Midwest Ear Institute in Kansas City, said she sees patients without access to hearing aids or cochlear implants 'face a vicious cycle of isolation, unemployment and diminished quality of life. 'By providing Medicaid coverage for these essential devices,' Lewis testified in January, 'we not only support the well being of these individuals, but also help them remain productive and contributing members of society.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
