Florida's Medicaid call center's wait times, disconnection rates preventing health care access, study warns
Florida's Medicaid call center is experiencing long wait times and high rates of disconnection that could be preventing families from renewing or accessing healthcare coverage, according to a report by UnidosUS.
MIAMI — The Medicaid call center in Florida is experiencing long wait times and high rates of disconnection that could be preventing qualifying families from renewing or accessing Medicaid coverage, according to a report by UnidosUS, a national Hispanic civil rights and advocacy organization.
Around 1 million people, 17% of Floridians enrolled, have lost coverage since April, which is when the state started redetermining Medicaid eligibility for the first time since 2020. During the pandemic, Congress had put in place provisions barring states from ending Medicaid coverage regardless of whether or not people qualified, but that expired last year.
Florida's drop in Medicaid enrollment is the second largest in the country after Texas’, according to the UnidosUS study.
Issues with the call center are at the heart of the problem, said UnidosUS’ Florida political director, Jared Nordlund. One way the state decides whether people are no longer eligible for Medicaid, he said, is if they don’t respond to correspondence mailed to them. Many times, people have questions about the mailer they've received and aren't sure what they need to do to avoid being dropped. Yet, when they try to reach out to the state's Medicaid call center, it’s nearly impossible to get through to a real person.
The report found that 8 in 10 calls to Florida's Medicaid call center were automatically disconnected from the phone system. When people managed to get through, there were long delays to reach live receptionists.
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