State Dashboards to Monitor the Unwinding of the Medicaid Continuous Coverage Requirement

Elizabeth Lukanen and Emily Zylla, SHADAC

This expert perspective was updated on March 13, 2023.

The unwinding of the Medicaid continuous coverage requirement represents the largest nationwide coverage transition since the Affordable Care Act, with significant health equity implications. As states restart eligibility redeterminations, millions of Medicaid enrollees will be at risk of losing their coverage with some portion exiting because they are no longer eligible, some losing coverage due to administrative challenges despite continued eligibility, and some transitioning to another source of coverage. As part of this process, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will require states to closely track and monitor the impacts of the resumption of eligibility redeterminations and disenrollments, and plans to make some of those data public. CMS’s commitment to transparency is mirrored by calls from advocates and researchers eager to see how progress is being made as people enrolled in Medicaid have their eligibility redetermined. 

Given the intense focus on coverage transitions during the unwinding, some states have initiated plans to publish a data dashboard to monitor progress. Data dashboards are useful for publishing dynamic data that is in high demand. They allow states to make proactive decisions about what data to release and on what schedule and then organize that data in an easy-to-digest visual format that facilitates the interpretation of key trends and patterns at a glance.

To date, three states—Iowa, Minnesota and Utah—have a public data dashboard. Thirteen other states have indicated they plan to either release a dashboard or publish their unwinding data, according to the Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families’ 50-State Unwinding Tracker. SHADAC will update this Expert Perspective as additional dashboards go live.

State Unwinding Dashboards – Weblinks and Data Highlight

Screenshots as of 3/13/2023

Iowa Department of Health and Human Services – Medicaid and COVID Unwind

Provides highly visual and detailed dashboard metrics to monitor the process of enrollments, applications, renewals and workload.

Minnesota Department of Human Services – Renewal Dashboard

Provides the ability to disaggregate data in various ways such as by county, social vulnerability quartile and member race/ethnicity.

Utah Department of Health & Human Services – Unwinding Eligibility Data Dashboard

Provides detail on redetermination progress (e.g. average days to decision, fair hearing requests, reviews for non-Medical program) and outcomes (e.g. transfers to the Marketplace, transitions from Medicaid to CHIP).