Louisiana has modernized its Medicaid enrollment processes over the past year, using the new process to kick off many who don’t qualify, but also extending the ability to enroll to people who might otherwise have trouble.
Medicaid-eligible Louisianans used to be enrolled by responding to mailers, visiting the Department of Health offices, contacting call centers or working their way through the DOH website.
The app now enables users to securely enroll in the program, compare health care plans, find in-network doctors near their locations, and more. The state is billing this project, which has been dubbed Healthy Louisiana, as the first Medicaid enrollment app in the country, Governing reports.
And it seems to be well-received among users. To date, Healthy Louisiana carries a 4.5-star rating on the Apple App Store, with one of the 68 ratings reading: “So wonderful of a service that is provided for people that can’t afford. So grateful.”
DOH spokesman Robert Johannessen says Healthy Louisiana simplifies the often arduous task of comparing differences between five managed care plans so a user can easily find the best option to suit their needs.
“This pretty much continues a strategic initiative of the department and Medicaid to find as many different pathways as possible for us to be able to communicate with our Medicaid members,” Johannessen says. “Since we went to the managed care format, most of the health plan to member communications is handled by the (Managed Care Organizations), so it’s incumbent upon us as an agency to be able to identify ways that Medicaid can speak directly to our members. This is one of those tools that we now have.”