UHC Ohio Medicaid Updates: Verification & Emergency Assistance Changes

Ohio Medicaid Verification Update via PHD, Jarvis, Mira
UnitedHealthcare has recently learned that the state of Ohio Medicaid verification system is undergoing a transitional stage that will prevent agents from verifying Medicaid in our state. Jarvis, Mira and the Producer Help Desk (PHD) are impacted by this change and currently do not have a workaround to verify eligibility.

What you need to know:

The state system will likely go down at 5 pm tomorrow, Tuesday, Jan. 31. This outage could potentially last for several days.
• You are able to continue writing new business during the outage, but you may need to ask additional questions of your prospects to verify their status & eligibility (ask if or who’s paying their Part B premium, are they part of MyCareOhio, do they have a local JFS office case worker they work with re their benefits, etc.)
• Please submit enrollment applications as soon as possible before the blackout window to avoid any potential delays.
• There may be a delay for applications being approved for Feb. 1 and March 1 effective dates.

At this time, UHC is unable to determine how long this outage will be. UHC will keep brokers updated as they receive additional information. UHC is working with the state of Ohio to get this resolved as quickly as possible.

 

Ohio Medicaid – Emergency Assistance Changes

Beginning in April, Medicaid expansion is set to begin unwinding across each state that took part in the COVID pandemic related Medicaid coverage increases. This will result in a county by county effort by local JFS offices to contact over 1 million Ohio Medicaid recipients letting each person know they need to reenroll.

 

This is very likely to cause confusion & frustration among clients & prospects at the low income venues and organizations you partner with. At the same time, this becomes an OPPORTUNITY for each of you to provide additional service and assistance and value to the locations you visit each week.

 

For additional information, please see this recent local TV video report from the local Columbus NBC station: Changes approaching for Medicaid recipients | NBC4 WCMH-TV (nbc4i.com)