West Virginia cited for not following Medicaid auto renewal requirements

(The Center Square) – West Virginia is one of 30 states not following guidance from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services on renewing eligibility for Medicaid participants.

The issue is, when determining eligibility for Medicaid, states are required to auto-renew any individual who is potentially eligible based upon other available information the state has access.

Some states, like West Virginia, have been only conducting those auto renewals for families, not on an individual basis. West Virginia told CMS it had not been doing individual auto renewals for children, impacting less than 10,000 children.

States are currently undergoing a process called redetermination where the state analyzes the eligibility of applicants for the program.

The process of the state’s annual required check of eligibility was halted during the COVID-19 emergency. That redetermination pause lasted from March 2020 to March 31 of this year.

Through August, more than 80,000 West Virginia residents had been deemed ineligible for Medicaid during redetermination.

West Virginia had 571,538 Medicaid enrollees to start September, down nearly 100,000 from peak enrollment.