MAUMEE, Ohio — Paramount Health, the insurance affiliate of ProMedica, announced Monday it's reducing the area of coverage for its Medicaid plan in Ohio.
The change, which won't go into effect for a few months, will not affect members in northwest Ohio but does affect the future of medicaid in the state.
"We are going to be exiting one region of the state," Paramount President Lori Johnston said.
Paramount Health is one of five providers (Buckeye Health Plan, CareSource, Molina Healthcare, Paramount, and UnitedHealthcare) that offer a state Medicaid plan in Ohio. Its plan covers around 215,000 members across the state.
The Ohio Department of Medicaid splits the state's coverage into three regions: west, northeast and central/southeast. Paramount is leaving the central/southeast region, where it says it will have the lowest total impact. Johnston said tehy will assist the 31,000 affected in transitioning to a new plan.
"Goal is that they're able to choose another plan," she said. "That will really have no impact to them in terms of what physician they see, what facility they go to."
Last year, ProMedica announced it was considering dropping its Paramount Medicaid plan all together due to costs. Johnston said this move represents a compromise to stay in the Medicaid program.
"This was truly a compromise of how do we get the Medicaid portion of our business back to financial stability," she added. "And disrupt the least amount of members."
Enrollment IT issues last year forced Paramount to stop accepting new members in our area. But Johnston said that has been resolved as of January 1 and it is now accepting new Medicaid members in our area again.
Johnston added that Medicaid still needs more fixes at the state level but she is confident in the future.
"This change will help us be most effective and help create long-term stability so that we can continue," she said.
Affected members will be contacted by Paramount over the next few months to assure a smooth transition over to a new plan, with no lapse in coverage.
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