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Dr. Mehta Talks Medicaid Unwind : Patient Stories

June 25, 2023

Video Transcript


So recently I've, as I've been working in the, ER, I've started chatting with families more about the Medicaid and unwinding and the renewal process just to see who may be aware of it and what resources they, they're already getting in touch with. And over the past few weeks it's been really disheartened to not meet a single family who has been aware that this is coming and it's been a range from younger kids to older kids, all of them on Medicaid and unaware that this new eligibility window was going to occur. And I have some patient stories that kind of illustrated how damaging this impact could have without the proper awareness. And so one of the patients I saw was this really cute four year old boy, we'll call him Kay and Kay was, had asthma. He was doing really well controlling his asthma on a lot of special controller medications and other inhalers. And he had been living with his mom and dad and they had moved twice in the past few years and they had no idea that the renewal was coming up and also didn't know where they were, what address they were at when they first enrolled in it. And so they were concerned that they weren't going to hear about it at all unless they had gone actively through the gateway themselves. Another patient I saw was a 16 month old and she was there with a stomach bug and was starting to feel better after some medications and was thankfully going to be able to go home. But she also had been living now with her aunt for some time, she had a lot of family in Atlanta and had been moving around from house to house and caregivers. And the aunt also wasn't sure where her address was with her mom when she first enrolled. Um, and then the third story I'll, I'll offer as I was this, it was a 16 year old that I remember quite well whose mom was Spanish speaking and that was just another whole barrier to, to explaining the proper resources, the eligibility and making sure that they would get some of those resources in, in appropriate language for them.

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