SR 21-15 Dated 08/21

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES – DIVISION OF ECONOMIC AND HOUSING STABILITY

BUREAU OF FAMILY ASSISTANCE (BFA)

INTER-DEPARTMENT COMMUNICATION

SUMMARY

This SR releases new policy in relation to Medicaid Eligibility for Compact of Free Association (COFA) migrants. Effective August 27, 2021, COFA migrants are eligible to receive medical assistance, as “qualified non-citizens”, without a five-year waiting period, as long as all other program requirements are met.  

*This policy does not apply to SNAP, Child Care Scholarship or any Financial Assistance eligibility.

BACKGROUND

The Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021, requires states to cover COFA migrants as “qualified non-citizens”, without a 5-year waiting period, if they are otherwise eligible for medical assistance. COFA is an agreement between the United States and the three Pacific Island sovereign states of the Federated States of Micronesia; the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau, which are also known as the Freely Associated States.

POLICY

The Medicaid eligibility process in New HEIGHTS has been modified to exempt COFA migrants from the five-year waiting period. The current Verified Lawful Presence (VLP) process will be used to verify citizenship or immigration status of COFA migrants. All the cases for which the Federal Data Services Hub returned the QNC indicator as ‘Y’ and the Lawful Presence indicator as ‘Y’ will be identified as COFA migrants with the following three codes; “MIS or FSM or PAL”. If an applicant is from one of the COFA countries the workers will need to fill in the ‘Country’ field on the Details tab of the Alien screen.  

NEW HEIGHTS & NH EASY SYSTEMS PROCEDURES AND IMPLEMENTATION

The following changes have been made to New HEIGHTS and NH Easy.

• The Alien Screen Summary and VLP Status tabs will remain unchanged. The Details Tab will be modified to change the label from ‘Country of Issuance’ to ‘Country’.

• Updates have been made to the “Country” information only for COFA migrants based on VLP response

• Medicaid eligibility process has been modified to have the five-year bar rule exempted when the applicants are COFA migrants and the worker completes the “Country” field.

• Updates made to Screen Help (F1) to inform workers that the ‘Country’ field should be filled in if the application is from COFA countries.  

DESCRIPTION OF REVISIONS MADE TO FORMS

There are no forms associated with this policy.

POLICY MANUAL REVISIONS

Updates to the manuals effective October 1, 2021

Revised Medical Assistance Manual Topics

303.07 Determining Qualified Alien Status

303.11 Qualified Aliens Eligible without Restriction

Revised Adult Assistance Manual Topics

305.07 Determining Qualified Alien Status

305.11 Qualified Aliens Eligible without Restriction

Revised Family Assistance Manual Topics

305.09 Determining Qualified Alien Status

305.13 Qualified Aliens Eligible without Restriction

IMPLEMENTATION

This policy and all New HEIGHTS changes were effective August 27, 2021.

All the cases for which the Federal Data Services Hub returned the QNC indicator as ‘Y’ and the Lawful Presence indicator as ‘Y’ will be identified as COFA migrants.

A one-time batch process was created to identify the cases with

• Class of Admission (COA) = “MIS or FSM or PAL”, and    

• Non-citizen country code for the  COFA countries

CLIENT NOTIFICATION

No special client notification is planned or needed.

TRAINING

No special training is planned or needed.

DISPOSITION

This SR may be destroyed or deleted after its contents have been noted and the revised manual topics released by this SR have been posted to the On-line Manuals.

DISTRIBUTION

This SR will be distributed according to the electronic distribution list for BFA policy releases.  This SR, and revised On-Line Manuals, will be available for agency staff in the On-Line Manual Library, and for public access on the Internet at www.dhhs.nh.gov/dfa/publications.htm, effective October 1, 2021.

DMS/jf:s