<body><div><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=3tvEka_1H3z5Lo700" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=3tvEka_1H3z5Lo700" width="1060" height="707" >Several nonprofit organizations are mobilizing to help Iowans navigate and understand changes that are coming to Medicaid eligibility and requirements in Iowa. These changes are happening due to legislation known as H.R.1. Some changes began Oct. 1, with additional changes beginning in December and then again in December 2027, according to the Polk County Health Department.Those changes, according to the Polk County Health Department, include:<ul><li>Beginning Oct. 1, certain refugees and other humanitarian immigrants who do not have a green card lost full Medicaid coverage.</li><li>Beginning Dec. 1, some adults applying for the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan, which provides health coverage at low or no cost to Iowans between the ages of 19 and 64, with eligibility based on household income, will need to meet a community engagement requirement to qualify for Medicaid. Those community engagement requirements generally mean participants, with some exemptions, must complete 80 hours each month through either work, education, job training, community service or a combination of those.</li><li>Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, people enrolled in the Iowa Health and Wellness Plan will have their Medicaid eligibility reviewed every six months instead of once a year.</li></ul>Deidre DeJear, president and CEO of Oakridge Neighborhood Services, which has a mission to provide housing while filling service gaps in the neighborhood, said clients are unfamiliar with navigating the new requirements.“Where can they go to fulfill education requirements … especially if they cannot get a job?” she said. “There’s a great deal of confusion. And so our task at Oakridge over the last three months, as more and more has been coming out, was that we were a safe haven for those folks who needed to fulfill these requirements, that we would create space for them to fulfill the work requirements with regard to placing them in jobs.”She said the organization is also committed to finding them opportunities to volunteer to fulfill those requirements. “And if volunteering isn’t within their capacity, then the education aspect is also something that we already do, and we’re creating space for individuals to fulfill those education requirements,” DeJear said. DeJear said her organization is reaching out to residents who are receiving redetermination letters, which addresses the need to have their Medicaid eligibility reviewed every six months so they know what steps to take.“The onus is on us to make sure that they understand what they’re experiencing,” she said.The part of H.R.1 where certain refugees and other humanitarian immigrants who do not have a green card lose full Medicaid coverage is critical to address, DeJear said.“They no longer have medical coverage, and so filling in the gaps for those families has also been a priority for us to ensure that they’re not skipping a beat in the case that they need those types of services,” she said.She said she’s worried people will fall through the cracks and lose their healthcare coverage.“It’s inevitable that that will happen,” she said. “That’s a byproduct of these new rules. We are creating additional barriers, and when we create additional barriers, not everyone overcomes them.”The business community can respond to these changes in community engagement requirements by “creating space within your organization for people to fulfill the work requirements, or the volunteer requirements or the job training requirements,” DeJear said. “I think if entities have the capacity to be a safe haven for those individuals to be treated with dignity in doing this work, offer that up.”She also urged human resources departments to be mindful and to ensure that people have support in navigating through this process.“If you’re creating space for people to be able to talk about this and ask questions, I think that that would be helpful for our populations,” DeJear said. Corey Dion Lewis, founder and president of My City, My Health, which creates spaces where people can access information and take action around their health and well-being, recently organized an event for people with questions about the Medicaid changes.He teamed up with local partners, including the Polk County Health Department and United Way of Central Iowa, to put on the community conversation that was held Oct. 13 at the Polk County Central Senior Center in Des Moines.“Everybody, like healthcare, public health, people understand and recognize … this is going to hurt a lot of people,” Lewis said. “But those that aren’t a part of these conversations, I don’t think there’s a big understanding of like, oh, this is going to really impact our community in a negative way.” Mary Nelle Trefz, advocacy director at Iowa ACEs 360, which is focused on creating the conditions that families need to thrive and trying to prevent and respond to childhood trauma, said the new law has ripple effects beyond those who use Medicaid.“When Medicaid is impacted, when reimbursement rates go down, when people no longer have Medicaid coverage and now become uninsured, our providers are going to struggle to keep their doors open because Medicaid is such a large payer for our overall healthcare delivery system,” she said. “So, it’s going to have a potentially devastating impact on our community members, on our healthcare system and also on our workforce because we know our fellow Iowans, our immigrants and refugees, play a vital role in our economy and our workforce. And if they’re not able to access the healthcare that they need to get and stay healthy, they’re not going to be able to show up at work. And you can just see the ripple effect that that can have for employers, [and] our community at large.” The changes could also further impact employees by having them request verification for their hours, wages and pay stubs, Trefz said.“It’s more paperwork for the employers,” she said. “It’s more paperwork for the employees. It’s more paperwork for the state.” Stephanie Moris, director of the Refugee Alliance of Central Iowa, said that 1,600 individuals in Iowa lost Medicaid on Oct. 1 due to immigration-specific eligibility factors.“We’ve been trying to help some individuals who are working look at employer-based plans if they’re eligible,” Moris said. “There’s Marketplace, although we know subsidies for Marketplace expire in January. There’s some private membership-based models like Exemplar Care. It really kind of just depends on each individual.”The organization has worked to provide information to community leaders in the state, she said, “to make sure people were as prepared as possible, and then are identifying resources that might be available to those that do lose or that did lose their coverage.”“We worked with the resettlement agencies, a lot of our ethnic community-based nonprofit organizations, all of those entities that are direct service providers, to make sure that their case managers were aware of what changes were happening, who might be impacted, how we can help prevent people, hopefully, from losing Medicaid if possible, and then where to go and how they can navigate their health needs if they do lose it,” Moris said.</div></body>

Block Source: Des Moines Business Record

Misinformation

Clickbait

Old or repetitive news

Explicit content

Location not relevant

Several nonprofit organizations are mobilizing to help Iowans navigate and understand changes that are coming to Medicaid eligibility and requirements in Iowa. These changes are happening due to legislation known as H.R.1. Some changes began Oct. 1, with additional changes beginning in December and then again in December 2027, according...

Community organizations mobilize to help with Medicaid changes

NewsBreak

Several nonprofit organizations are mobilizing to help Iowans navigate and understand changes that are coming to Medicaid eligibility and requirements in I

Community organizations mobilize to help with Medicaid changes

Comments