By David Gorn for California Healthline
State officials are in the midst of dropping a large number of Medi-Cal beneficiaries. It’s the Medi-Cal renewal process — every year, beneficiaries are required to re-enroll to continue receiving the benefit.
This year, that process potentially could result in millions of beneficiaries exiting the program.
Last week the Department of Health Care Services said about one million Medi-Cal beneficiaries a month will need to renew their Medi-Cal eligibility this year.
All individuals enrolled in Medi-Cal have 12 months of eligibility. Renewals are conducted based on the original month an individual’s Medi-Cal eligibility began.
“While DHCS is currently working with the counties on gathering specific Medi-Cal renewal data, we assume that approximately one million renewals are due per month on a statewide basis, given our current enrollment numbers,” said Norman Williams, director of communications at DHCS, in an email.
State officials declined to release data about how many Medi-Cal beneficiaries have been terminated. DHCS officials said that data — the total numbers or percentage of renewals month by month for the past six months — is “not available.”
