In July President Trump signed legislation that includes increased reporting requirements and new work requirements for Medicaid. Federal Medicaid administrators are expected to send guidelines for implementing these changes to state administrators in September. State administrators and state legislators will then have fifteen months to write regulations, pass bills and get a program up and running before the end of next year.
These new rules will require the state to gather a lot more information about Medicaid participants. Some of that information can be obtained or verified by the state without any action by participants. An example of information that the state can verify without any action by a participant would be details about the healthcare services being provided to people who are already enrolled in Medicaid. In some cases this information can be more useful in determining if a person is exempt from work requirements than anything a participant could produce on their own.
Verifying eligibility through information collected by governmental and other independent sources decreases the risk of people being cut from the program due to the fear or embarrassment involved in asking figures such as an employer or a landlord to repeatedly fill out a form on their behalf. If it can be avoided, people who rely on Medicaid should not be required to do things they worry endanger their employment to continue to have access to basic healthcare.
Verifying Medicaid eligibility through independent sources also reduces the risk that people will be cut from Medicaid because they do not receive a notification or have difficulty navigating the computer system that is primarily used to request information from participants and to accept documents and other responses. This month Crossroads Urban Center conducted a survey of clients at our two emergency food pantries and learned that a significant pe struggle to apply for benefits on-line or to use the state website to make updates to their Medicaid or SNAP case.
When people do not use the computer system to submit verifications they instead go to an office and talk with state employees or call and talk to state employees. If new reporting requirements for participants are overly complicated then the share of participants needing in-person assistance will increase. Such an increase will lead to the need for more state employees and increase the cost of implementing these rules. The best way to avoid these cost increases is to verify information using independent sources as often as possible.
As Utah explores options for complying with these new Medicaid reporting requirements it is worth noting that on August 21, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled "IMPROVING OUR NATION THROUGH BETTER DESIGN" with the purpose of improving the "sprawling ecosystem of digital services offered to Americans," This initiative is intended to begin showing initial results before the new Medicaid requirements go into effect.
State officials should reach out to the entity created by this Executive Order, the America by Design initiative, to see if they are willing to help Utah come up with an application and eligibility system that is simpler to navigate and more accurate in determining eligibility. Can information about income that is already collected by state and federal tax agencies be used to verify employment status and income for Medicaid? Can information collected by a federally funded housing authority be used to verify place of residence for Medicaid?
These new rules will require the state to gather a lot more information about Medicaid participants. Some of that information can be obtained or verified by the state without any action by participants. An example of information that the state can verify without any action by a participant would be details about the healthcare services being provided to people who are already enrolled in Medicaid. In some cases this information can be more useful in determining if a person is exempt from work requirements than anything a participant could produce on their own.
Verifying eligibility through information collected by governmental and other independent sources decreases the risk of people being cut from the program due to the fear or embarrassment involved in asking figures such as an employer or a landlord to repeatedly fill out a form on their behalf. If it can be avoided, people who rely on Medicaid should not be required to do things they worry endanger their employment to continue to have access to basic healthcare.
Verifying Medicaid eligibility through independent sources also reduces the risk that people will be cut from Medicaid because they do not receive a notification or have difficulty navigating the computer system that is primarily used to request information from participants and to accept documents and other responses. This month Crossroads Urban Center conducted a survey of clients at our two emergency food pantries and learned that a significant pe struggle to apply for benefits on-line or to use the state website to make updates to their Medicaid or SNAP case.
- 10 percent of the people we interviewed said it took them between one and two hours to apply for Medicaid or SNAP on-line.
- 10 percent of the people we interviewed said it took them more than two hours to apply for Medicaid or SNAP on-line.
- 32 percent of the people we interview told us it is very hard to apply for Medicaid or SNAP on-line.
- 31 percent of the people we interviewed told us it is very hard to find information about a Medicaid or SNAP case on-line.
- 15 percent of the people we interviewed reported that they do not use the website at all.
When people do not use the computer system to submit verifications they instead go to an office and talk with state employees or call and talk to state employees. If new reporting requirements for participants are overly complicated then the share of participants needing in-person assistance will increase. Such an increase will lead to the need for more state employees and increase the cost of implementing these rules. The best way to avoid these cost increases is to verify information using independent sources as often as possible.
As Utah explores options for complying with these new Medicaid reporting requirements it is worth noting that on August 21, 2025, President Trump signed an Executive Order titled "IMPROVING OUR NATION THROUGH BETTER DESIGN" with the purpose of improving the "sprawling ecosystem of digital services offered to Americans," This initiative is intended to begin showing initial results before the new Medicaid requirements go into effect.
State officials should reach out to the entity created by this Executive Order, the America by Design initiative, to see if they are willing to help Utah come up with an application and eligibility system that is simpler to navigate and more accurate in determining eligibility. Can information about income that is already collected by state and federal tax agencies be used to verify employment status and income for Medicaid? Can information collected by a federally funded housing authority be used to verify place of residence for Medicaid?
