Long backlogs plague Medicaid in Ohio

Residents wait an average of 200 days for their applications to be processed.

COLUMBUS (AP) — A backlog has placed 16,000 Ohio residents in an administrative limbo while they fight to receive Medicaid benefits from the state.

Services for Ohio’s poor, disabled and blind are in short supply and the lines are long. Administrative processes take months — sometimes years — to navigate, leaving in-need residents frustrated or suffering.

“I’m sure they have big caseloads and not enough people, but we’re just a number to them,” said 53-year-old Sherry Yeater, who successfully appealed her Medicaid denial after more than a year of waiting.

Officials blame lacking funds and staff, but Ohio counties are spending an estimated $10 million a year just to determine who is eligible for the state’s Medicaid program, which is overseen by the Department of Job and Family Services.

Ohioans, on average, wait 200 days for their Medicaid application to be processed, and that is after counties do their part of the paperwork. The county-level process often takes weeks.

Ultimately, 65 percent of applications are approved, said Joel Potts of the Ohio Job and Family Services Association. But only a quarter are approved on their first attempt.

State officials blame increased enrollment for delays in processing applications. Ohio Department of Job and Family Services spokeswoman Scarlett Bouder said Medicaid has reduced its backlog from 22,000 earlier this year. Almost 1.8 million Ohioans rely on the tax-funded coverage.

Throughout the system, critics note stories of long waits for no reason other than overloaded inboxes.

For instance, take 16-year-old Randall Lee Adkins II, who has cerebral palsy and cannot walk or talk. Medicaid refused to replace his duct taped-together wheel chair five times in two years. One of the rejections came because of a typo, Adkins’ attorney said.

“The state doesn’t make it easy to care for a growing boy,” said Anne S. Rubin, an attorney for the family.

They are not alone.

Medicaid tried to dismiss a claim from the family of Murphy Vetter, a 5-year-old with Down syndrome and autism. He is now 400th on a list of almost 4,000 residents waiting to receive services.

Vetter’s family said Medicaid tried to dismiss the claim, saying he had been “cured.” Down syndrome is never cured and Vetter was returned to Medicaid. But in the meantime, his family received $40,000 in hospital bills.