Medicaid covers a disproportionate amount of people with opioid use disorder, according to the report. Some physicians have seen patients who stopped taking opioids during the COVID-19 pandemic relapse after coverage changes because they can no longer afford therapies that helped treat the disorder.
There were 80,000 deaths linked to opioids in the U.S. in 2021, according to the report. State health officials have raised concerns that redeterminations could increase overdose rates. Some have identified grants to pay for treatment when people lose Medicaid coverage.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse is researching the effects of redeterminations on the epidemic, according to the report.
As of Aug. 1, at least 3,787,000 people have lost Medicaid coverage during the redetermination process, and 74 percent of those disenrollments are due to procedural reasons, according to data from KFF.
