Ohio’s Medicaid director is taking issue with a report from a progressive think tank that suggests millions of people in the program could have their health care interrupted because of a change that takes effect in July.
Medicaid participants will be notified soon that they must confirm which of seven managed care plans they want – though people who’ve been in Medicaid haven’t had to do that if they wanted to stay with their plan. Ohio Medicaid Director Maureen Corcoran said part of the reason for that is to get people to be more engaged and informed about their health care.
"We know that when people have to kind of stop and think about it, they're going to get more drawn into their health care," Corcoran said. "We want to encourage people to be affirmative and learn and be active in their health care."
Those who don’t respond could be assigned to different plans later this year, but Corcoran said they can always switch back.
“If a person doesn’t choose and we then make an assignment, they still can choose to go back to the plan they had had maybe a year ago or - they still have a choice, even if they hadn’t responded previously. So prioritizing choice is number one," said Corcoran.
Eventually, as many as 80,000 Ohioans could be moved to the new plans that need participants, but Corcoran said they can change back untill the end of November. Corcoran notes that's a very small percentage of the program's participants.
The group Innovation Ohio suggested those reassignments could disrupt health care for millions, but Corcoran said careful matching - finding plans that keep people in their networks, for instance - should mean that won’t happen, or that it would be rare.
Corcoran noted that for now, no one can be disenrolled from Medicaid because there's a public health emergency declaration still in effect for the pandemic.
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