Medicaid billing in schools

[Gina]

Hello, I haven't posted for awhile, life seems to take control sometimes! We just found out that our school district is billing medicaid for services for our daughter and other children with special needs. Which I do not mind, if the money they receive is used for the special ed program. I wonder if the schools are held accountable for the money they receive?
My frustration comes from the never ending excuse that the school district doesn't have the funds for this or that.
Does anyone have knowledge about this? Or know resources to learn more? Thanks, Gina

[Googsmom aka Jennifer]

This is what I know:
My oldest daughter, who does not have DS, is in special education classes. Her school district gets funds from the state to do this or that for special education classes only. If they fail to provide services to her or any of the kids and let's say me, the mom, finds out or gets denied for such and such a service they say they have no funds for, I can call up the Department of Education Special Ed Department and get some anwsers and usually get the service too
Do you get quartly reports from the school? Ours are called Special Education Report Cards and they show where the money is going and a bunch of other stuff.
If I can find the link in my bookmarks i'll post it for you. I'm sure it's a state by state resorse for special ed but let me go see if I can find it.....

[Googsmom aka Jennifer]

I found these. Maybe it will help you find what you need
The first link also has phone numbers for the Board of Directors

www.boardofed.idaho.gov/


www.disabilityinfo.gov/digov-public/public/DisplayPage.do?parentFolderId=5316

[Gina]

Thanks for the info - looks like I have some reading to do.

[victoriasdad]

hello gina fellow spudster , hey where about idaho do you live? we live in homedale, about 45 miles from boise

[CC]

"We just found out that our school district is billing medicaid for services for our daughter and other children with special needs"

Hmmm here in my neck of the woods a district cannot do that without a parents approval and signature.

I would look into this more to make sure all is kosher (sp?)

What area are you from again??

One reason I would object is our district at one time wanted to apply to an areas of services that Chris is entitled for his augmentative and I said NO cause 1. I knew they had to provide it by law and 2. the service they wanted to apply I knew had a life time cap, KWIM and since they by law had to cover till he was 21, I knew at 21 I would have to then cover the cost.

Hope that made sense BUT I for sure would look into this more, cause it does not sound right to me.

CC ~ in New Jersey

[Gina]

"Hmmm here in my neck of the woods a district cannot do that without a parents approval and signature."

Yes, you are correct. It has not been done that way, and our district is sending all of the money back to medicaid that they billed to them without our approval. I don't know how many families are affected....but I know my family is!!! The problem we have in our school district, not a lot of parents get involved.

Again, I have no problem if they get my approval, and then bill medicaid, and the money then comes back and benefits the special ed program. That is the reason that I had not signed yet, because I wanted accountability for the money they would receive. I know that "Ashton's" money doesn't come back directly to "Ashton's" services, but I think it should come back to the program.

The school district said that they already spend way more for kids in special ed then they are reimbursed, so when they get the money from medicaid, it is just reimbursing them for services/money they already spent. So there is no "surplus" to give back to the program. Is this true?? I don't know.

I live in Blackfoot, inbetween Idaho Falls and Pocatello.

I am not trying to get the school district in hot water. I just want to do everything I can to provide the most services available for Ashton's education.

[Kaylis]

An interesting (or at least it was for me) point a friend with several special needs kids made a few years ago was that the school districts will always ask for the kid's insurance information but you do not have to give it to them. She said that she stopped allowing the district to have that information (and it was medicaid) when she found that if the school billed for speech therapy for instance then she could not get medicaid to also pay for outside speech therapy. If the school provided the therapy without billing medicaid then there was no problem with medicaid paying for outside extra speech therapy. Also, if the school billed for medicaid transportation to or from the speech therapy there then the family couldn't also use medicaid tranport to alternative speech therapy.

I keep this very much in mind when doing any paperwork for the school district. We're having enough problems getting services from them that I don't want any limits placed on what we get elsewhere by the district.