Lawrence Memorial Hospital is not experiencing disruptions to its online Medicaid system, according to a spokesperson, amid reports that the website states use to access the program was down Tuesday.
The Trump administration on Monday ordered a pause to grants and loans distributed by the federal government, the Associated Press reported. Medicaid is administered by states, which access federal funding.
When the website states use went down shortly after the executive announcement, people became concerned payments would stop coming through, which could seriously jeopardize access to health care.
Autumn Bishop, a spokesperson for LMH, said the hospital still has access to its system through Medicaid, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
“LMH Health has access to the CMS portal and has not experienced any disruptions,” Bishop said Tuesday afternoon.
AP reported Tuesday afternoon that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the outage did not affect payments and that the website would go live again soon.
Meanwhile, other Lawrence and Douglas County-area agencies are working to determine whether they could be impacted by the funding freeze. Read more about that at this link.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.