These patients are the latest Medicaid recipients to find their coverage threatened amid the state’s redetermination process, which began in April 2023. Florida’s Medicaid rolls swelled by 1.7 million people during the pandemic, when the federal government gave states additional funding to keep people covered even if they were no longer eligible. Once the funding ended, the Department of Children and Families began conducting its first eligibility checks in years.

The state agency is meant to send notice at least 10 days prior to when a patient loses Medicaid coverage. This notice should include the reason for coverage being terminated.

But most long-term home care patients would have no reason to lose eligibility, Harmatz said.

“Think about who they are, what they’re dealing with,” she said. “They’re so disabled that they could go right into a nursing home or institution, and suddenly, their home health aid didn’t show up. How do they get out of their wheelchair? How do they clean themselves? … The level of concern with any interruption is heightened.”

Harmatz and her organization are pushing for all home care patients who were removed from the rolls to be immediately reinstated while the state assesses what happened. In an email she sent to general counsels at the Department of Children and Families and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, she said it was “the only logical and humane solution.”

“We’re at the panic point now,” Harmatz said. “We should not have to unpack every single reason why a person lost coverage.”

JeanBart began worrying about her son’s medical coverage in mid-March, when providers already began canceling appointments. They told her their computer systems showed Gianni’s coverage ending April 1.

She had been trying to order medical braces to help Gianni stretch the muscles in his arms and hands, but the braces take three to four weeks to create. In emails JeanBart shared with the Tampa Bay Times, employees of the brace company wrote they were concerned Medicaid would not pay. The retrofitted van service that Gianni uses to attend physical therapy and other outings also canceled.

This made little sense to JeanBart, who said her son was previously set for Medicaid renewal in July 2024. She called and emailed his health plan provider, Sunshine Health, as well as state agencies.

JeanBart said representatives at all three groups told her Gianni’s coverage was safe. A Sunshine Health case manager told her the April 1 expiration date could be a “ghost term date,” and that coverage would automatically renew once it passed.

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