Author: medicaidsaveslives

Hi! This is Cash. We live in Alma! He was given a postnatal diagnosis for Down syndrome where we also found out he has transient leukemia. Though he is overall very healthy and has not developed full blown leukemia, we do frequent testing with both oncology and hematology. He receives 90 mins/wk of PT, OT, and Speech. We would not be able afford these therapies without secondary coverage from TEFRA.

Olive is 2.5 and has private health insurance and a few months ago was approved for TERFA Medicaid. 12 days after she was born we were flown down to ACH where we stayed for 21 days battling encephalitis. 3 days into our stay we received a phone call stating that Blue Cross Blue Shield only covers $5,000 of her $12,000 helicopter ride and how would we like to pay for that? We knew nothing about Medicaid. We were naive and assumed that since our child had insurance that would cover what our daughter needed after we met our deductible. Boy, were we wrong. Since then we’ve had another $12,000 helicopter ride! ACH helped us sign up for Medicaid and we were on AR Kids until we were accepted into TEFRA! Olive was eventually diagnosed with Dystonic Spastic Quadriplegia Cerebral Palsy. Since she was 6 months old she’s received 120 minutes of OT, 180 minutes of PT & 180 minutes of ST from a local CMHS facility per week. We maxed out what BCBS covered in February. On top of helicopter rides & therapy there is also equipment that Olive needs to help her progress. Some of which insurance flat out won’t cover, private or Medicaid. My husband and I have spent thousands of dollars out of our pockets on Olive’s care and we are happy we are able to do so as that’s our responsibility as her parents. But without Medicaid we would have been completely bankrupt after her first 8 months of life. In a perfect world insurance companies would cover what a child needs but that doesn’t happen and when your child has a disability such as Cerebral Palsy, Medicaid becomes a necessity.

Our son was born at 37 weeks with a postnatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome. By 4 months of age practitioners informed us that our son had Plagiocephaly, also known as flat head syndrome, which is a condition characterized by an asymmetrical distortion (flattening of one side) of the skull. They informed us that a cranial helmet would be potentially 99% effective in correcting the Plagiocephaly. Unfortunately, our primary insurance denied the request for treatment. Thankfully, we had TEFRA and without TEFRA we would not have been able to afford not only one, but two of these helmets. Today our son is 18 months and he is free of a helmet and plagiocephaly. We desperately need medicaid for instances such as this and for daily physical, occupational and speech therapy.

Kennadi Pretty, Griffin Cossey and Macy Bryant are three Independence County children born with special needs whose families, without receiving Medicaid benefits, would not otherwise be able to afford treatments, therapies and other medical expenses for their children. They fear a cut in Medicaid funding will affect these families and many others — as well as a loss of jobs in this area (physicians’ offices, therapy clinics, developmental daycares, dental offices, Arkansas Children’s Hospital and other hospitals in the area).

https://www.facebook.com/guardonline

Rebecca says, “Medicaid has saved us from going broke financially. My son Jacob was born 3 months early. He’s had 15 surgeries and is a cp baby along with wearing a procussion vest airway clearance. We see 9 specialists at ACH; without Medicaid we would be broke from the surgeries and doctors visits along with hospitalizations.”