By Gaynor Ferrell
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s decision to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was good news to the 420,000 additional people who would qualify. For the New Jersey Division of Medical Assistance and Health Services (DMAHS), expansion presented some new challenges to providing timely service for determining eligibility.
The overwhelming interest in Medicaid’s NJ FamilyCare program at both the State and federal level via the marketplace meant some applicants had to wait longer than expected for enrollment.
Xerox and the Garden State have a long-standing relationship. For more than a decade, we have been under contract processing applications, managing eligibility and enrollment, and operating a customer service center for NJ FamilyCare. Like many states across the country, New Jersey experienced a massive influx of new applications and Xerox was asked to assist. We established a real-time connection to the Federal tool, MAGI-In-A-Cloud, that calculates eligibility based on an applicant’s income and family size. NJFamilyCare is a federal- and state-funded program created to help get access to affordable health coverage for qualified New Jersey residents who do not have health insurance through an employer.
We also hired and trained 120 new employees within six weeks, and we began processing applications that were pending via the State’s approved system and business rules. We worked through 40,000 forms by the end of May, and we expect to process an additional 200,000 renewals for beneficiaries determined eligible at the Federal Facilitated Marketplace by the end of the year.
We’re working with the state to keep focus on the people who rely on this system every day. It creates a straightforward and reliable experience that New Jersey residents can count on.
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Great article.