BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana’s health department has temporarily suspended a feature of its new eligibility system that automatically kicked people off the Medicaid rolls if they did not respond to requests for annual renewal information.
The move will keep 75,000 people from losing coverage immediately.
Medicaid Director Jen Steele confirmed Tuesday the agency is suspending the auto-closure feature amid a higher-than-usual call volume for staffers processing Medicaid enrollee information.
Before the suspension, enrollees had 30 days to respond to requests for annual renewal information before they automatically lost coverage.
The Advocate reports that Steele says the auto-closure feature is suspended only for people whose annual renewal took place in July and August.
The department says the change won’t impact removals tied to quarterly wage reviews of Medicaid recipients.
