In March of 2012
Florida legislators passed a bill saying that Medicaid should cover autism
services for children diagnosed with autism.
As a provider of
Applied Behavior Analysis services for over 8 years, this makes myself, and
many low-income families very happy. Especially since I’ve been trying for the
last 5 years to become a Medicaid provider being turned down always for some
mistake which is incomprehensible to me and the team of consultants I’ve hired
to get me on as a Medicaid provider.
But now I’m
getting an influx of telephone calls from families who have been approved for
services with nowhere to go. It seems that virtually every agency I’ve talked
to is running into the same road blocks as I have. And after a stint of telephone
tag with the people from the Miami Medicaid office, I found out that they’re
not quite sure what to do with all the families and have nothing really set up.
This is
really sad because Early Intervention is the key to effective autism
intervention. In testimony at a trial, Dr. Elza
Vasconcellos, a neurologist who is director of the Autism Clinic at Miami
Children’s Hospital says children who get early autism therapy were able to
attend mainstream classes with their typically developing peers.
“I see kids who get applied
behavior analysis and have money getting better, and kids who don’t have money
just staying there — and we don’t see any progress,” Vasconcellos testified.
“For me, as a mother and as a doctor, it’s really devastating to see that.”
For me as a practitioner, it’s especially frustrating because the
services are there, the funding is there, but there seems to be a disconnect
between getting one to the other.
