To renew beneficiaries’ Medicaid coverage, states must first attempt to confirm ongoing eligibility using data available to the agency without requiring information from the individual. This requirement, also known as ex parte renewals, can reduce the administrative burden for states and simplify the process for beneficiaries. Improving ex parte rates has drawn renewed interest as states prepared for the unwinding of the continuous coverage requirement.
To understand the barriers to successful ex parte renewals and opportunities to improve them, MACPAC contracted with Mathematica to conduct a roundtable with federal and state Medicaid officials and subject matter experts in June 2023. Overall, participants agreed that improving the ex parte process is an important goal, but that there are a number of factors that complicate implementation and the issues may take some time to resolve. This issue brief describes the key themes and opportunities for improvement that emerged during the roundtable.