DHHS Prepares For ‘Emergency Unwind’

The state Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) will be restarting annual redeterminations for Medicaid recipients, and ending extra benefits for those on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to comply with what DHHS Director Elizabeth Hertel called a “COVID-19 Public Health Emergency Unwind.”

Hertel, who spoke before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, said the necessary unwind is a result of federal pandemic emergency assistance that was provided to SNAP beneficiaries and Medicaid recipients and is now ending.

She said additional SNAP assistance increased benefit levels to the maximum amount allowable per eligible group regardless of income, with an additional $95 for groups already receiving the maximum benefit. For Medicaid recipients, Medicaid agencies were required to continue health care coverage for all programs, even if someone’s eligibility changed.

During that time, DHHS data found Michigan’s Medicaid caseload grew by more than 700,000 people.

But with the passage of the federal Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, the Medicaid requirement and extra assistance ended yesterday, Hertel said.

Hertel said regular benefit amounts will resume in March, and DHHS will soon restart the process of making Medicaid redeterminations, which means some who were made eligible during the pandemic could no longer qualify for assistance.

Hertel said the Department has been working with community partners to spread information about resuming redeterminations and the additional options Michiganders may have if they’re no longer eligible, including working closely with health plan partners, who often have more up-to-date contact information than DHHS.

She said the process, which will take place monthly starting in June 2024, is likely to take around 15 months. Michiganders will receive monthly renewal notices three months prior to a beneficiary renewal date, and she estimated that the department will process around 150,000 to 200,000 redeterminations a month.

Following her testimony, Rep. Ann Bollin (R-Brighton) asked what measures have been put in place to prepare for the redetermination process?

Hertel said DHHS has been working to prepare for this moment for two years, and “knew at some point the public health emergency was going to come to an end.”

The Department has invested money for additional staffing and keeping IT systems updated, she said, with a total of $30 million over the last two years.

She said the Department feels well prepared, but “we’ve never had to take on this level of redetermination work, ever. So we will learn as we go.”

Rep. Phil Green (R-Millington) expressed concern about the possibility for similar issues to those the Unemployment Insurance Agency (UIA) faced during the pandemic with wrongful determinations and fraud.

Hertel said both the state and federal government conduct annual audits on redetermination and eligibility processing within DHHS, and individuals won’t know in real time if they’re deemed eligible and are not, or vice versa.

She added that more often than not, audits don’t find that a person deemed eligible is ineligible. Instead, a majority of cases come from an individual being deemed eligible in the wrong category.

She added that DHHS will be sending each legislator a toolkit to assist with redetermination in the case they get calls.

This story courtesy of MIRS, a Lansing-based news and information service.