Michigan is extending a deadline to try to ensure that no one with Medicaid insurance loses access to their doctor.
About 1.7 million people in Michigan rely on Medicaid insurance. Doctors with Medicaid patients had until Thursday, March 1 to submit documentation to a new payment system, called CHAMPS, for short.
But Erica Quealy of the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services says there's a big backlog right now.
"It can take 3-4 weeks for us to completely process their enrollment," she says of the backlog.
So the deadline will be extended. The new deadline hasn't been announced yet.
Quealy says Medicaid patients can call their doctors if they're concerned, to make sure they've enrolled in CHAMPS.
