A three-year hiatus ended in June for more than 1 million California Medi-Cal enrollees. They once again had to prove they were eligible for the government-funded health care coverage, and roughly eight out of 10 got their paperwork in by the June 30 deadline, California Medicaid Director Jacey Cooper said Thursday.
That was about the same proportion of enrollees who successfully completed monthly re-enrollment in California before Congress enacted the Families First Coronavirus Response Act in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, requiring states to continue covering anyone who was approved for Medi-Cal or any other Medicaid program around the country.
Beginning in June and continuing through May of next year, Medi-Cal enrollees have to re-apply for coverage by the end of the month in which their eligibility dates fall.
Medi-Cal discontinued coverage for about 225,000 individuals, or roughly 21% of people whose coverage came up for renewal in June, Cooper said, but those who lost coverage have 90 days to provide the necessary documentation and restore their coverage retroactive to the cut-off date.
