Medicaid enrollments averaging 1,000-plus per day

(The Center Square) – An average of 1,000 North Carolina residents are signing up each day for Medicaid since the state expanded the program Dec. 1.

That’s twice as fast as other states which recently expanded their programs, said Kody Kinsley, the state’s secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Meeting with a legislative committee Tuesday, Kinsley said 389,411 residents have registered. That includes 272,937 people who were automatically enrolled on the first day.

“Our campaigns are going strong, with over 30 million impressions on social” media, Kinsley said.

The agency has translated materials on the expansion into other languages including Arabic and Vietnamese, he said.

Eventually, the state expects 600,000 enrollees under the expansion of the joint state-federal health care program.

Although complete claims data is not yet available, there is no indication that the new enrollees are having trouble finding health-care providers, Kinsley told the legislators.

“People are getting care,” he said. “We’ve seen nearly a half million prescriptions being filled. Those prescriptions had to be written. We are also seeing tens of millions of dollars of dental claims being filled.”

Expanding the Medicaid program may eventually attract more providers, said Jay Ludlam, the state’s deputy secretary for Medicaid.

“I think having the additional funds from expansion, and more adults participating through that model, we will see more dollars begin to flow and more business opportunity here in North Carolina,” Ludlam said. “We will continue to attract more providers.”

The agency projects that its Medicaid spending will come close to the amount budgeted this fiscal year.

By the end of the fiscal year in June, “our expenditures for services will slightly exceed our budget in appropriations for services,” said Adam Levinson, the state’s Medicaid chief financial officer. “We do believe we will end the year within 1% of our appropriations budget.”

However, he cautioned that there is still “a tremendous amount of uncertainty” in the budget outlook.

“We will be back in the fourth quarter and we will update you on where we are,” Levinson said. “Hopefully our projection is good.”