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State Medicaid Waivers and Insurance Mandated Services for Children with Autism
Methods. Researchers reviewed waivers on the Medicaid website, reviewed state websites and spoke with state administrators for waiver information and reviewed the National Conference of State Legislatures website for insurance mandates and parity laws.
Results. Currently, 23 states have mental health parity laws in place and 34 states have laws that mandate insurance companies cover services for children with ASD. Forty-one states offer TEFRA waivers (26) or HCBS(c) waivers (31) that include some services for children with ASD and ID/DD, while 12 states have waivers explicitly designed for children with ASD. There is considerable variation across states; researchers found wide ranges in ages covered (no age restriction, 0-2, 3-6, 0-21, etc.), services covered (ABA to respite only), expected cost of services ($6,295-$161,040), and number of children served (30 to 4,710).
Conclusions. There is currently no standard set of practices employed by states to help children with ASD. State efforts need to be compared for efficacy and to serve as a baseline for ACA changes.
Learning Areas:
Provision of health care to the publicPublic health or related public policy
Public health or related research
Social and behavioral sciences
Learning Objectives:
Describe the efforts being made by each state to provide services to children with ASD.
List the states that have passed mandates requiring insurance companies cover autism services.
Compare the number of children with ASD served by Medicaid waivers across states
Describe the different services provided by each waiver and their associated expected costs.
Keyword(s): Child Health, Health Care Access
Qualified on the content I am responsible for because: I have worked in women's health research for the past nine years and autism research for the past year. I have done extensive research on the subject of this abstract.
Any relevant financial relationships? No
I agree to comply with the American Public Health Association Conflict of Interest and Commercial Support Guidelines, and to disclose to the participants any off-label or experimental uses of a commercial product or service discussed in my presentation.