Utah's Medicaid administrators are optimistic the program will be ready for full expansion in April

A majority of Utah voters approved Proposition 3 this month, meaning the Medicaid expansion initiative will take legal effect in December.

But the actual deadline for the state to have an operational, fully expanded program is April 1, giving the Utah Department of Health and Medicaid administrators a tight deadline to prepare for an influx of tens of thousands of enrollees.

“That’s a really tight time frame for us,” said Nathan Checketts, the state’s Medicaid director. “There are a lot of operational lifts we have to get done to hit that.”

Checketts said the Utah Department of Health kept tabs on polling, which showed Proposition 3 carrying majority support ahead of the election. And some preliminary steps were taken before the vote, Checketts said, to put the program in a position to begin expansion if and when the initiative succeeded.

Read more: https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2018/11/22/utahs-medicaid/