With the National Covid-19 Emergency Declaration ending on May 11th, so will the continuous enrollment in the Medicaid/La Chip program.
The public health emergency expanded Medicaid coverage eligibility for thousands and halted the disenrollment period. Those eligibility reviews are set to begin again April 1, 2023. By ensuring information is up to date before April 1, Medicaid eligible families can protect their access to healthcare coverage.
Robert Tasman, vice president of mission integration with Our Lady of Lourdes, said that any gap in healthcare coverage can cause delays in not seeking treatment. Any gap in healthcare coverage can cause delays in seeking treatment.
"The major issue is that if individuals don't do this and they're caught in this space where their coverage lapses, we know that has s a tremendous impact on, not just individual health, but public health as well," Tasman said.
Tasman also said that more than two-million Louisiana residents enrolled in Medicaid or the LA Chip program, that's about 40 percent of the population.
Over 260,000 of those people, he said, are below the age of 64.
"It's a tremendous number of individuals in our state," Tasman said. "You would find the same trend in the deep south, our neighbors in Mississippi and Alabama. Because of the economies that we have, naturally our population is impacted more by this than other states in the country. Regardless of that fact people are people, human beings are human beings, and we want to make sure we care for them in the most efficient ways that we can."
What You Should Know:
The deadline to make sure all of your information is updated is April 1.
You can do this by going to ldh.la.gov
Check your mail and fill out any paperwork that comes in from the Medicaid program.
You should know by July 1 whether or not you'll be covered for the upcoming year.
