During the COVID-19 pandemic, California suspended its annual Medi-Cal renewal processes. This federal “continuous coverage” requirement allowed millions of Californians — including many people who were experiencing homelessness — to stay on Medi-Cal during the health crisis.
On April 1, 2023, Medi-Cal resumed its normal renewal processes. From that date, California has 14 months to redetermine eligibility for over 15 million enrollees. Many Californians who remain eligible for Medi-Cal are at risk of being disenrolled from the program simply due to administrative or procedural barriers, such as Medi-Cal eligibility offices not receiving the completed renewal form.
People experiencing homelessness are at particular risk of losing coverage since most people experiencing homelessness may not have a mailing address, or their mailing address has changed in the past three years. Without an updated mailing address, they may not realize they need to renew.
This Medi-Cal Renewal Toolkit (PDF) equips service providers, people experiencing homelessness, health enrollment navigators, and communities with the resources to keep current Medi-Cal members covered. The toolkit is also available in Spanish (PDF). In October 2023, Homebase held a webinar about the toolkit.
Homebase, a nonprofit dedicated to preventing and ending homelessness, produced the toolkit with support from CHCF, and recently created a national version so that providers, people experiencing homelessness, and Medicaid partners in every state can help unhoused people maintain their coverage. Homebase expects to create a Spanish language version of the national toolkit soon.
