Kansas' Medicaid application backlog is four times greater than state officials thought, according to The Kansas City Star. Although previous reports said the state reduced its list of low-income residents waiting to be approved for Medicaid coverage to 3,480, the most recent count found it is actually up to 15,393 residents.
In a letter dated June 10, Susan Mosier, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, blamed the inaccurate numbers on a company the state contracted to manage the backlog of Medicaid applicants.
The letter was written to James Scott, associate regional administrator of CMS in Kansas, according to the report. Ms. Mosier wrote that applicants who were denied eligibility and then reapplied were not counted on the state's backlog reports until the most recent filing in May.
The federal government requires bi-weekly reports from the state on its backlog status and updates on what it is doing to address it, according to the report.
Kansas switched its computer system for Medicaid application processing in 2015 and it has since experienced a myriad of issues, including the issue with backlog status reports.
Angela de Rocha, a spokeswoman for the state's health department, said officials were disappointed when they uncovered the mistake, as they had committed various resources over the last several months toward shrinking the backlog, according to the report.
"The state really, really regrets this and is unhappy that we thought we were making so much progress," said Ms. de Rocha, according to the report. "And it turns out we weren't making the degree of progress we had hoped."