About 22,000 Alabamians lost Medicaid coverage in July, according to recent eligibility data from the Alabama Medicaid Agency.

Most of the drop is from termination of healthcare coverage, but not all, according to Alabama Medicaid Ageny Communications Director Melanie Cleveland.

“Some recipients may have moved out of state, passed away, or asked to be removed from coverage,” Cleveland stated in an email. According to the AMA website, the agency removed 22,313 people from the Medicaid rolls between June and July.

Jennifer Harris, health policy advocate with the nonprofit Alabama Arise, said this decrease is due to the COVID-19 emergency program unwinding earlier this year. She anticipates that eventually 60,000 to 80,000 Alabamians will lose coverage because of the end of the COVID-19 emergency.

The 2020 Families First Coronavirus Response Act included continuous coverage for Medicaid recipients, so they didn’t have to re-enroll. The program expired in June, and about 1.5 million people lost coverage nationally.

In a previous interview, Harris said the ineligibility numbers didn’t decrease dramatically in Alabama this summer because the Medicaid office did a more systematic, monthly unwinding process. According to Cleveland, recipients are allowed to be reinstated 90 days from their termination date.

“If they are still eligible, their coverage may be reinstated back to the date of termination,” Cleveland said.

Harris said Medicaid eligibility in Alabama is “very prohibitive.” For example, she said two adults and one child with an income of more than $373 per month (or $4,476 per year) are ineligible for Medicaid. The income eligibility requirements for a family of three are approximately $3,025 monthly if a woman is pregnant.

Alabama is one of 10 states that have chosen not to expand Medicaid, which would give healthcare access to approximately 300,000 Alabamians who are in what Harris called the “coverage gap.” The income for a family in the gap is too high for Medicaid. However, they still can’t afford private insurance or receive subsidies from Healthcare.gov.

Harris said it’s essential to use the recipient’s portal of the AMA website to ensure the office has the correct mailing address, phone number, and email address. Sometimes, recipients are ineligible because the AMA office can’t contact recipients.

Alabama Arise created a toolkit for Medicaid recipients who may lose coverage because of the unwinding process. Harris also encourages people to reach out to Enroll Alabama, which has navigators to go through the next steps.

“We do want people to get that support to understand how to navigate the system,” Harris said.