Help MaineCare Members Avoid a Gap in Health Coverage Before the Extended Unwinding Deadline

Jul 18, 2024

Important:

• The deadline for MaineCare unwinding is extended through October 31, 2024.
• It is critical to reach MaineCare members between July and October 2024, to ensure they renew their coverage.
• The members scheduled for unwinding renewals during this time period are members to whom the Department reached out previously during the Unwinding process but did not hear back from. The Department is providing another opportunity for these members to renew now that it has updated its passive renewal, or “ex parte” system, to make renewal easier for some of these members.

How providers can help:

• We encourage you to identify staff within your office who can reach out to your patients directly during appointments, or by phone/email, about the need to renew their MaineCare, and to build this outreach into regular workflows during the July-October period.
• Include information from the unwinding communications toolkit in emails, social media, or other communications.
• Print and hang the posters or distribute flyers from the toolkit in your offices and any location where patients go in person.
• The toolkit is translated into nine languages, which can be found here.

New provider resource:

Based on feedback, MaineCare implemented a new system update that allows providers to view a patient’s individual renewal date in their Health PAS Online Portal account. The remaining population of members who have not yet completed their renewals are at risk of losing their coverage if OFI does not receive the information it needs to verify their eligibility. Providers are trusted messengers who can reach their patients with this critical renewal information.

Background information:

Throughout the unwinding period, DHHS has paused the disenrollment of MaineCare members due for renewal who did not respond by their deadline, while working to implement individual-level passive renewal within our enrollment system.

Members who would have otherwise been disenrolled for non-response will have another opportunity to renew during August-October of 2024. Notices will begin going to MaineCare members with August renewal dates in mid-July.

Members who are found to no longer be eligible for MaineCare can use a Special Enrollment Period to enroll in affordable health plans on CoverME.gov, Maine’s Health Insurance Marketplace.

More information about this process can be found at MaineCare.gov/unwinding