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Lake County tests low‑cost outreach to reduce Medicaid and SNAP churn after PHE rollbacks
Summary
Human Services reported heavy caseload pressure from benefit renewals after the pandemic-era public‑health emergency ended. Staff are piloting pre‑redetermination outreach (calls/emails) with Mathematica and a Gary Foundation grant; early results showed about 60% success in preserving benefits for contacted clients.
Human Services staff warned the Board of County Commissioners that the county’s benefit offices remain under heavy operational strain as Medicaid and SNAP redeterminations continue after the end of the federal public‑health emergency.
Director Laura reported the county currently manages roughly 2,600 Medicaid cases in the county case management system (about 1,700 active enrollees) and a SNAP case load of roughly 1,100 records (about 514 families enrolled). She described how automated renewals and paperwork deadlines can cause eligible residents to be dropped from coverage if documentation arrives late or not at all.
To reduce churn, the department has begun a randomized pilot with Mathematica and Gary Foundation funding that calls or emails beneficiaries shortly before their redetermination deadlines. Laura said the county’s early experience shows about 60% of clients contacted during the pilot complete redetermination and avoid lapses in benefits. “We’ve had some success — about 60% — just in doing that in the past three months,” she said.
Laura asked the board to support continued experimentation while the county coordinates with state systems (CBMS) and Mathematica to scale automated reminders; staff cautioned that new state performance contracts must reflect differences in small‑county caseload dynamics so that counties are judged on contribution and complexity as well as raw timeliness metrics.
Human Services also reviewed child welfare and APS activity: 54 referrals to child protective screening in the past quarter with 14 intakes and eight ongoing cases moving into court supervision; APS referrals were up and the county is building in‑home and harm‑reduction resources to address those needs.
Commissioners asked for clearer case‑load reporting formats and recommended county advocacy at the state level to ensure metrics and funding calculations reflect small‑county realities.
