Missouri to provide 12 months of Medicaid coverage for children

By Chelsi Peter, KOMU 8 Reporter / December 6, 2023

JEFFERSON CITY − It's about that time again where Medicaid renewals are required to keep health care coverage. Starting in January, all states will be required to cover Medicaid recipients who are 18 years or younger, for 12 months.

Continuous eligibility provides health care coverage to children except for instances where the child ages out, moves out of state or voluntarily withdraws. 

States will no longer be able to remove children for failing to pay their premiums during that 12-month window.

"This will impact families because they will have the security in knowing that their child will receive that 12 months of coverage without interruption," Caitlin Whaley, communications director of the Missouri Department of Social Services (DSS), said.

Beyond the idea of security, this renewal will give families more flexibility to continue going to health care services that were planned in advance.

"That will allow families to schedule things like therapies, appointments, procedures that are further out without being worried about a change in their coverage," Whaley said.

MU Health Care pediatrician Dr. Alexandra James says she saw an immediate effect of how kids and families were hurting from the lack of access to health care.

"So before continuous coverage was put into place, families would walk into my clinic either for a child check-up, an asthma exacerbation or to refill medications for chronic illness, and that's when they found out that they had been dropped from Medicaid," James said.  

Whaley said officials understand that many Medicaid recipients also start to "benefit cliff," which is when families deter from taking raises or new positions due to fear that their Medicaid eligibility could be impacted.

Fifty percent of the state's Medicaid recipients are children, according to Whaley. 

James says families often go without proper access to health care and the medication needed to keep their children healthy.

"Continuous Medicaid coverage creates stability, and in any health care system, that is vital to make sure that we keep kids healthy," James said. "It does that by making sure that they have access when they need access." 

Over the last six months, kids have been the leading group of individuals who have needed renewals. Nearly 53,000 children in Missouri are due for a renewal this month.

During the course of the pandemic, states did not conduct annual renewals of Medicaid benefits. The federal government instructed states to not remove benefits except in cases of death, incarceration or moves out of state. 

Over the last year, states resumed the annual renewal process, and people began to find themselves ineligible and/or removed from the Medicaid population. 

"The continuous eligibility policy doesn't really have any impact on individuals who have had an annual renewal conducted up to this point, or really those that will get an annual renewal going forward because that is still required for children," Whaley said.

Families have multiple ways to get renewal forms turned in. Families can fill out the form via mail or through an online portal, or they can go to a local resource center. 

"Every time we send a renewal form to a family, that form will lay out the timeline by which someone needs to return it," Whaley said. "It is a rolling process, where a roughly 30-day window to return the letter is given."

Once the 30 days are up, families have an additional 90 days to return the form so the state can reopen their case, Whaley said. 

So far, 40% of participants have renewed coverage electronically and 11% of participants used the pre-populated renewal form that was sent, according to the DSS website.

James said it's important that families are properly made aware of their eligibility and that procedures are in place for when children are dropped from Medicaid coverage. 

"Access to care is a right, especially for children in order for them to be healthy and to be able to be productive in our community," James said.