Date: October 6, 2022
To: All Medical Assistance Program Providers
Re: Don't let your clients lose their Medicaid
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This notice asks providers to help ensure their clients have an up-to-date address on file with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services (HFS). Otherwise, some Medicaid customers' coverage could lapse early next year. We encourage providers to use our messaging toolkit to walk clients through the process in person, give them flyers, or reach out to them by phone or email. We ask for special attention to Spanish speakers, who are more likely to need to update their address.
Background: Why Medicaid Customers Are at Risk
Medicaid customers haven't had to renew their benefits in years due to the federal Covid-19 public health emergency. They've had continuous coverage. As a result, the State of Illinois has a lot of old addresses on file. In some cases, these addresses haven't been updated since April 2019. A large portion of Medicaid customers have moved since then.
The federal government may declare an end to the emergency in January. Continuous coverage will end and Medicaid customers will have to go back to renewing their insurance annually. HFS is committed to keeping all eligible customers on Medicaid – but to do that, we need to send them renewal forms. If we have a bad address, the customer won't get the forms and may not know they have to renew. People's coverage could lapse without them knowing it. And Spanish speakers are expected to be disproportionately impacted.
To be sure, we won't be sending renewal forms to everyone the moment the emergency ends. We will reach out to customers gradually throughout the year: if they last renewed in a June, we'll mail them in June; if August, August. And fortunately, many clients will already have a current address on file because they've been renewing other benefits – like SNAP – that haven't allowed for continuous coverage. But hundreds of thousands of Illinois residents may nonetheless need to update their address with us. We don't want any of them to slip through the cracks.
What Providers Can Do: Help Clients by Using the Address Update Messaging Toolkit
HFS is asking providers to use all available communication channels to help Medicaid customers update their addresses. Our messaging toolkit lays out how you can do that. It has flyers, social media graphics, template emails and call scripts, and more.
The easiest way to update an address (by far) is to go online to Medicaid.Illinois.gov. There's a simple form on that page that can be filled out and submitted in about two minutes. Although Medicaid customers have to be the ones to do it – no one else can do it independently – providers can fill out the form themselves if the customer is with them.
The other option is to call HFS at 877-805-5312. That will take longer, but it's a good option for those who don't have internet access, can't use a keyboard, have to do it while they're out and about, and so on.
Please distribute these messages far and wide to reach as many Medicaid customers as possible – especially Spanish speakers, who are facing greater barriers. Print the flyers, post on social media, use the phone scripts, add messaging to your landing pages, and include the text in your newsletters or email blasts. Repetition is key to adoption, so please send these messages multiple times.
If providers are in touch with other organizations that work with Medicaid customers, please send this toolkit to them and ask them to distribute these messages as well.
Download the toolkit.
Global Messages for Address Updates
Here are the core messages from the messaging toolkit. You are welcome to adapt this messaging for your audience; just keep in mind, research shows that getting into too much detail about the PHE is counterproductive.
- Medicaid members! Don't risk losing your health insurance. Update your address with Illinois Medicaid.
- Illinois Medicaid needs to send you paperwork. To keep your health insurance, use an address where mail can always reach you.
- Updating your address is easy, fast, and free. Visit Medicaid.Illinois.gov or call 877-805-5312 from 7:45am–4:30pm. If you use a TTY, call 1-877-204-1012.
The phrasing, content, and tone of these messages were developed with thanks to State Health and Value Strategies, the National Association of Medicaid Directors, GMMB, and valuable feedback from members of the Public Education Subcommittee of the Illinois Medicaid Advisory Committee.
For More Information
If you have questions about the use of this toolkit, please contact hfs.communications@illinois.gov.
Kelly Cunningham, Administrator
Division of Medical Programs
