CHIP Enrollment Snapshot: December 2013
The data in this report reflect the number of children, including individuals covered under the unborn child option, enrolled in CHIP programs in each state. State CHIP officials provided data specifically for the month of December 2013. States also were asked to review data in previous reports in this series and to update data as might be appropriate for previous periods. The data for this report were requested in March 2014; responses for most states were returned by May 2014. Data for specific states in reports issued by CMS may differ from data in this report. Beyond the “point-in-time” versus “ever-enrolled” counts described below, differences occur when states provide data for this report for a point-in-time other than the final day of a quarter, when states update enrollment counts, e.g., for retroactive eligibility of a Medicaid-expansion CHIP program.
The data in this report are “point-in-time,” meaning the number of individuals enrolled in a specific month, such as December 2013. A “point-in-time” count is distinct from the “ever-enrolled” count, which is provided in reports issued by CMS. The annual count of children ever-enrolled will always exceed the number enrolled at any point- in-time, as long as new enrollments and departures occur during the year. Recent experience shows that one-third of CHIP enrollees enrolled at any time during the year were not enrolled at the end of the year.
Net Change. The data collected for this report are net changes in enrollment across the program and within select eligibility groups, taking into account the net impact of children enrolling and disenrolling from the CHIP program. Because this data are not individual level data and states do not make a distinction between enrollment among current beneficiaries and new beneficiaries, it is not possible to determine from this data the number of children that left the program and the number that newly enrolled in a given time period. For example, this data set cannot be used to determine how many of the 5.8 million beneficiaries enrolled in December 2013 had been enrolled in December 2012.
Differences between this report and preliminary data released by CMS of monthly enrollment trends. Starting in April 2014, CMS began publishing monthly reports that include total Medicaid and CHIP enrollment as part of an initiative to provide data on a broad set of Medicaid and CHIP eligibility and enrollment performance indicators to inform program management and oversight.1 However, this data resource, while providing some of the most timely Medicaid and CHIP enrollment data in the program’s history, is still in its early stages of development. Notable differences between that data and the data provided here include:
- Inclusion of Medicaid. The CMS report combines enrollment figures for Medicaid (Title XIX) and CHIP (Title XXI.) We report these two groups separately; CHIP enrollment (Title XXI) is included in this report and Medicaid enrollment (Title XIX) is included in a separate report https://www.kff.org/medicaid/issue-brief/medicaid-enrollment-snapshot-december-2013.
- Reporting Method. CMS asks states to submit their enrollment data through an online portal each month, revising data reported for the previous month only. As discussed above, we ask states to report data for June and December of each year. States are asked to submit updated data as far back as they desire each time the data are collected.
- Retroactive Eligibles. Medicaid expansion CHIP programs allow for up to three months of retroactive eligibility. Because of the timeliness of the data collection process, the CMS data do not generally reflect retroactive enrollment. For this report, we ask states to include retroactive enrollment whenever possible.
- Trend. This data sources goes back to 2000, showing enrollment trends in monthly enrollment for December and June between 2000 and 2014. The CMS data captures monthly enrollment before open enrollment for the Marketplaces began (average of enrollment between June and September 2013) and enrollment for January, February and March 2014.
