More Than 100,000 Los Angeles County Medi-Cal Beneficiaries Must Reapply for Enrollment in Program

About 122,000 of the 2.5 million Medi-Cal beneficiaries in Los Angeles County this month will receive letters from the Department of Health Services to inform them that they will have to reapply for enrollment in the program or risk losing coverage, the Los Angeles Times reports. The effort seeks to address a situation in which state and county Medi-Cal beneficiary lists have "grown increasingly dissimilar" over the past five years because state and county computer systems could not share information with each other, according to the Times. The 122,000 Medi-Cal beneficiaries will have to update their personal information with DHS to remain in the program and must continue to update the information every three months. "It's uncertain how many of those" Medi-Cal beneficiaries will lose coverage because they no longer qualify for the program, but "many are expected to be reinstated," the Times reports. According to Ken August, a spokesperson for DHS, Medi-Cal beneficiaries who lose coverage can request a three-month extension while they appeal the lost coverage, although some could face a temporary delay in coverage during the process. Community Clinics Association of Los Angeles County CEO Mandy Johnson raised concerns that some Medi-Cal beneficiaries who have changed addresses might not receive the letters and could lose coverage as a result. Vilma Champion, director of managed care for Northeast Valley Health, said that DHS has sent not-for-profit clinics a list of Medi-Cal beneficiaries scheduled to receive the letters, but when they contacted those beneficiaries, they found that "some of them don't understand it, ignore it or throw it away" (Hymon, Los Angeles Times, 4/24).