When “Exempt” Isn’t Enough: Medicaid Work Requirements and Maternal Mental Health

Cosponsored with Funder for Maternal Mental Health (FMMH)

Medicaid work requirements are set to take effect soon, creating a burdensome administrative process that most enrollees will need to navigate to keep their coverage. Certain populations are exempt from these requirements—including people who are pregnant or postpartum, and those parenting a child age 13 or under. But exemption does not mean automatic protection: in most cases, individuals must actively prove or attest to their exempt status, often through paperwork and verification processes that are easy to miss or misunderstand.

On paper, this should mean pregnant, postpartum, and parenting individuals face no risk to their health insurance. In practice, the complexity of federal rules—combined with the burden of proving an exemption rather than simply receiving one—will inevitably create confusion, fear, and unnecessary coverage loss for people who qualify.

For people who are pregnant, postpartum, or parenting, this could mean slipping through the cracks of a system that assumes they are protected but does not make that protection easy to keep—worsening maternal mental health in the process. For people of childbearing age more broadly, it could mean losing access to pregnancy and pre-pregnancy counseling that helps them achieve and maintain healthy pregnancies.

The goals of this webinar are to:

· Understand who is exempt from Medicaid work requirements and how exemptions are verified;

· Identify barriers that exempt pregnant individuals and parents may face in navigating the verification process;

· Consider how complex requirements can disproportionately affect certain families, particularly those in need of mental health services and supports;

· Explore promising approaches in navigating these requirements and maintaining coverage; and

· Discuss opportunities for funders to support policies, practices, and community-based approaches that help ensure exempt individuals and their families are not left behind.

Register here.