TAMPA, Fla. — The folks at Tampa Family Health Centers know what it means to fill a gap.
"Tampa Family Health Centers are federally qualified health centers. We are your community healthcare center," said the organization's President & CEO, Sherry Hoback.
They're a one-stop shop that provides medical access to the uninsured, underinsured, and publicly insured.
"We see everybody regardless of their ability to pay. We turn no one away," said Hoback.
And right now, they're working extra hard to make sure that the last group continues to have access to insurance if possible.
This comes as the state of Florida prepared to re-evaluate its Medicaid policies and remove people who no longer qualify.
The state hasn't been allowed to do this for almost three years because of federal pandemic guidance—but those protections expire on March 31.
"We need to make sure the patients are still getting what they need in the midst of life happening. Because when life gets tough, the first thing that gets put on the back burner is healthcare," said the Chief Medical Officer for Tampa Family Health Centers, Dr. Ashley McPhie.
According to the state Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) about 900,000 people in our state no longer qualify for Medicaid. Leaders with Tampa Family Health Centers said they care for about 3,500 of those people.
"What we're really looking to do is when we're going through this re-determination plan is have the patients come in, have the community come in, you don't even have to be a patient of Tampa Family (Health Centers), come on in!" said Hoback, "You'll sit down with one of our financial counselors, we'll see if you qualify for a different plan and we also know we want to get you on that Hillsborough county healthcare plan if we can."
But outside of Hillsborough County, not everyone will be as lucky. Leaders with the Florida Health Justice Project said there are many people living in areas where a county healthcare plan doesn't exist.
"We will have a lot of people who, as a result of losing Medicaid, will end up in what we call 'the coverage gap.' Those are people who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid but too little to qualify for a marketplace subsidy. And those people are ending up without health coverage," said the executive director Alison Yager.
But there are still places you can go if you fall into that group.
"Places like federally qualified health centers, you know, the public clinics that we think about in our communities that are providing care on a sliding scale or to their local hospital or to their local charity care hospital," said Yager.
And in the end, they add that the possible loss of coverage for some is an issue we should all be concerned about.
"There's really not just individual health. There's no such thing as individual health alone. There is all of us as part of communities," said Yager.
As far as the timing for this process, leaders with AHCA said they will start re-evaluating policies on April 1—and they add that the first policy cancellations could start as soon as May 1.
They also added that they won't be removing those who don't qualify all at once but rather on a monthly basis over the course of the next year.
According to DCF, children that are removed from the Medicaid program will be recommended to Florida Healthy Kids, which offers low-cost health and dental plans in the state.
The agency said that there are another 850,000 people within the Medicaid program that they cannot get in contact with. To update your information with DCF, click here.
