CMS approves two state requests to extend Medicaid postpartum coverage

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services today approved state plan amendments allowing Tennessee and South Carolina to extend postpartum coverage from 60 days to 12 months after pregnancy for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program enrollees under the American Rescue Plan Act. They join Louisiana and Michigan in opting to extend the coverage for five years under an ARPA provision that took effect April 1. Before ARPA, states could use a Section 1115 waiver to extend postpartum coverage to 12 months, as Illinois, New Jersey and Virginia did last year. 

CMS said California, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C., also are developing plan amendments to extend postpartum coverage under ARPA.