(C) Common Dreams
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HHSC Employee Email Medicaid Redeterminations 7.25.23 [1]
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Date: 2023-09
Subject:
We Need Your Help, Texans Need Your Help!
Dear Commissioner Young,
As concerned citizens and dedicated employees of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, we feel it is our responsibility to bring several critical matters to your attention regarding the current operations within the organization. These issues are escalating rapidly, and the agency is facing significant risks, including the potential termination of Medicaid coverage for countless individuals and the potential loss of billions of dollars in federal funding earmarked to support Medicaid coverage throughout the public health emergency.
In April 2023, we received official notification from agency leadership that they were initiating a rollback of all policies previously implemented as directed by CMS in March 2020. Subsequently, we were informed to prepare for a substantial increase in workload and mandatory overtime. Within a tight eight-month timeframe, we were tasked with processing close to 6 million Medicaid recipients. Approximately two weeks after the process began, we started receiving numerous emails from agency leadership indicating that thousands of individuals had been erroneously denied coverage. Consequently, we were burdened with the manual correction of these coverage issues. Despite multiple inquiries, the reasons for these denials were not adequately explained by agency leadership. We participated in daily meetings with Ms. Molly Lester, Deputy to the Chief Program and Services Officer, Michelle Alletto, and staff from the Chief Information Officer responsible for our IT department. Ms. Lester was apprised of these issues daily. There are still outstanding decisions and unresolved issues that are causing coverage gaps that were brought to her attention several months ago.
As a result of the initial process we ran in April, we were informed that approximately 80,000 individuals lost coverage erroneously, including several thousand pregnant women who required critical services during their pregnancies or essential post- pregnancy care coverage. Additionally, we received subsequent emails from agency leadership indicating that several thousand elderly individuals were slated to lose medical coverage, which previously paid a portion of their Medicare Part B expenses. The concerning part was that many of these individuals did not receive any notice of denial, leaving them unaware of their coverage termination until their social benefits were reduced to cover the premium payments. We were told this was being worked on.
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[1] Url:
https://www.scribd.com/document/666698604/Hhsc-Employee-Email-Medicaid-Redeterminations-7-25-23
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