Wow...funding is being cut to medicaid in NC!

[DammitJanet]

I just got a notice from Medicaid that says there is important information coming down in the next month.

I know some of this is going to effect me and I will most likely lose my therapist "on the books." We are waiting to hear how they are changing that service.

Absolutely absurd that they will cut therapy but they just may.

What looks really unreal is that it says about Level 3 and Level 4 Residential Treatment Services. Level 3 is regular, unlocked group homes and Level 4 is secured group homes or locked facilities so to speak.

They are saying that children in these facilities WILL be coming home to their communities! Uhhh...say what? How are communities supposed to handle them?

 

[susiestar]

I guess NC gave Department of Juvenile Justice a bigger budget, cause that is where a bunch of those Level 3 and 4 kids are going to end up if their supports are taken away.

Such stupidity.

 

[JJJ]

We just successfully fought that in Illinois. Can you get together with others and file a class action?

 

[klmno]

I guess NC gave Department of Juvenile Justice a bigger budget, cause that is where a bunch of those Level 3 and 4 kids are going to end up if their supports are taken away.

That's what already happened here- now this year they are cutting funding to all doctor, including Department of Juvenile Justice. Yep, they send them home with more demands on the family.

 

[DammitJanet]

According to what I can see from the information I just got and including what I hear from insider talk, it will do absolutely no good to make demands of parents to "do something" because the resources wont be there to access.

There really wont be such things as mentors or aides. Community Support services will be a thing of the past. Maybe, just maybe, some people will be able to get therapy but only for a short amount of time and it will have to be able to be shown that progress is immediate and profound. If someone has something like I do and needs long-term therapy, we are seen as too cost prohibitive.

 

[klmno]

Exactly, Janet. Right now we still have some things, like mentoring, available and these things will be required. But what happens is that all these people providing "supports" are backed up, under-trained, etc., and expect parents to jump thru hoops trying to accommodate them. Given the people they are providing for these services, they aren't effective even if the difficult child does try. The parents can't meet all thee scheduling requirements because we are busy trying to figure out how to keep a home, medication insurance, and food on the table and the people have no room for flexibility. This is why I'm making issue about the stuff now with the PO. It's a whole lot better, I think, for difficult child to have Department of Juvenile Justice place him somewhere else for a while than to come home and fail and end up in dss (ie, at my bro's).

It's a mess- our country is almost bankrupt! Hopefully, the medication insurance over-haul can provide some relief. Since medicaid dropped difficult child when he was sent to state Department of Juvenile Justice, difficult child is considered as having a lapse in insurance. With his pre-existing conditions, I don't know how I'll ever get him covered adequately on private insurance and he won't qualify for medicaid again once he comes home if I'm working. But, the judge just told me yesterday that I will have to keep him on insurance and have it in place by the time difficult child comes home. They order this stuff but don't acknowledge or seem to care that it's impossible to do it.

Not to get political, but at least Obama understands that if we are all sick, depressed, and out of work, we will never get this country back on track.

 

[slsh]

It's an extremely short-sighted approach, basically cost-shifting. The state loves thank you now because he's dropped off the radar, but it's a matter of time before he's back in a hospital, with no insurance, on the state's tab. Or worse yet, a long-term guest of the doctor. Penny wise and pound foolish.

I'm really quite deeply angry over these budget cuts because there's not an ounce of common sense involved.

 

[GoingNorth]

It's a bear. Many years ago husband and I found ourselves seriously thinking about divorce so that he could get care through Medicaid.

Luckily I was able to change jobs and get an ins plan that did not have a pre-existing condition clause.

I worked in IT startups back then and wound up taking a huge paycut to work for a major self-insured company...for the benefits.

Now I am disabled and also draw a VA widow's pension along with medicare. I wonder what is going to happen with MY coverage as time goes on. I am totally uninsurable otherwise. I can't afford my medications let alone any other care without the gov't coverage.

I'm old enough to remember when they closed the state and county facilities and basically turned the mentally ill out on the streets.

 

[Fran]

Maybe this is what they mean about personal responsibility and getting government out of our lives.
They are our kids so we have to figure out what to do with them. Pull ourselves up by our boot straps and figure it out.

I hear this all the time but it never seems to apply to them when they are cutting things away from their own kids who are in need.

Hope things even out between government helping the citizens in need and getting out of our lives. Very frustrating.

 

[DammitJanet]

Im lucky enough to have a therapist who will find the time to see me somehow, someway, sometime, no matter what. She will never leave me even if it means we only see each other during lunch time once a week and a play date once a month with our granddaughters.

That is so not the case for everyone else.

 

[judi]

I live in IL and we have been thru a lot with our son for over 10 years total now. We have never and never will qualify for Medicaid. However, I never looked to the state to help us except once and once that was denied (quickly I might add), I did what everyone else should have to do: get a second job. I'm a nurse, so for months on end I worked my 3 12 hour shifts in central IL and then went up to Chicago for three more 12 hour shifts to pay for my son's residential treatment. We were extremely fortunate that we had both a primary and secondary health insurance policies (one from me and one from hubby).

Sorry if I sound kinda bitter, its because I am - even after all this, our son is still lost to us.

Don't expect Medicaid to pitch in to care for these children.