Staffing crisis causing months-long wait for US Medicaid: report

NEW YORK - As every US industry is struggling to find workers now, staffing shortages in state Medicaid agencies around the country also come at a challenging time, the National Public Radio (NPR) has reported.

State Medicaid officials have said staffing is one of the top challenges they face, the NPR reported on Monday. The report cited Missouri as a case in point, noting that the state simply doesn't have the workers to keep up - last fiscal year, 20 percent of its employees who handled Medicaid applications left their jobs.

Meanwhile, 15 to 20 percent of the Utah Department of Health's eligibility workers were new; eligibility worker vacancies at the Texas Health and Human Services Commission have quadrupled over roughly two years, according to the report.

"States will soon need to review the eligibility of tens of millions of people enrolled in the program nationwide - a Herculean effort that will kick off once President Joe Biden's administration lets the COVID-19 public health emergency declaration expire," said the report.

"The nation is on course for a mass-scale disruption in people's benefits - even for those who still qualify for the insurance," added the report, noting that a bump in federal Medicaid funds to states, provided by Congress through COVID-19 relief legislation in 2020, will end shortly after the emergency's expiration.