New Ohio Medicaid system gets 1,100 applications on first day

On the first day of the launch of the state’s new online Medicaid system, more than 1,100 Ohioans submitted applications for coverage (Source: “1,165 apply online for Medicaid benefits,” Youngstown Vindicator, Dec. 10, 2013).

“The system’s going great,” Sam Rossi, a spokesman for the state’s Medicaid department, said late Monday afternoon. “We’ve had a very good day. We’ve been working very hard in recent months for this.”

Monday’s launch of www.benefits.ohio.gov was about a month earlier than initially expected and came less than two months after the state Controlling Board signed off on spending authority to direct about $2.5 billion in federal funds to cover health care services for Ohioans earning up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

Ohioans also have the option to enroll for Medicaid using the federal Healthcare.gov site, but because of glitches in the federally facilitated marketplace, data from the federal government is not being transmitted properly to states. Ohio has released a fact sheet outlining a series of steps for testing and receiving federal data.

“Medicaid coverage will begin on January 1 as planned for people who are eligible for the expansion group even if some of the applications are processed after January 1,” according to the notice. “This is because federal law requires Medicaid to cover allowable expenses in any of the three months prior to the date a  person applies, so anyone found newly eligible with allowable expenses who applies before April 1,

2014 will be eligible for Medicaid coverage dating back to January 1, 2014.”