September 11, 2023
Access & Coverage | Tea Leaves
  • Federal officials have raised concerns about long wait times at state Medicaid call centers as millions of Medicaid recipients face the potential loss of health coverage for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic. Nearly one-third of the states have received warnings from federal Medicaid officials that their lengthy call center wait times may be causing people to hang up, and give up as they attempt to renew Medicaid coverage amid a massive nationwide effort to clean up the rolls of the government health insurance program for lower-income residents. Utah had an average call center wait time of 35 minutes in May, with one in four callers simply hanging up. The longest wait time was in Missouri, at 48 minutes. In Nevada, more than half the callers abandoned their calls. (Article here)