Plan Proposed to Cover Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders
A Senate subcommittee last week proposed a $50 million solution to temporarily address the lack of coverage of a type of autism treatment under Medi-Cal – a gap in care that recently affected hundreds of Healthy Families children when the state moved them to Medi-Cal managed care plans. The new proposal would appropriate $50 million to make sure Medi-Cal children with autism are able to receive applied behavioral analysis treatment – known as ABA therapy – through the end of 2013. The assumption is that ABA therapy will be available as an essential health benefit under the Affordable Care Act starting in 2014.
“Clearly this item is to bridge a gap of service,” said Sen. Bill Monning (D-Monterey), chair of the Senate Budget Subcommittee on Health and Human Services, at a hearing last week.
Medi-Cal covers autism services through contracted regional centers around the state, but the eligibility criteria to receive ABA therapy is much more stringent than under the Healthy Families plan. An estimated 75% of children who were eligible under Healthy Families would not qualify for the same services under Medi-Cal. The percentage who do qualify may be even lower than 25%, according to Melissa Cortez-Roth, legislative advocate for Autism Speaks.”Not everyone who qualifies for Healthy Families who will be losing coverage qualifies for coverage at a regional center,” Cortez-Roth said. “Only a fraction of those children qualify for the regional centers.”
Toby Douglas, director of the Department of Health Care Services that has orchestrated the Healthy Families transition, said the Senate subcommittee’s plan might be difficult to implement.”We do just want to raise a couple concerns,” Douglas said. “First of all, we are concerned about the fiscal estimate. Given that this needs to be built into the plans, this would have to be built into the plans’ rates. …We are concerned it may underestimate the cost for our plans.” The second concern, Douglas said, is timing. “Any change to our plans requires contractual changes, as well as building in the rates,” Douglas said. “And we need to get approval from our federal partners, including amendments to our 1115 waiver to add this benefit, which will take several months.” Douglas said July 1 was not “a realistic implementation date.”
The state’s Department of Finance raised similar concerns. “As this proposal is unfunded, we have some concerns about the impacts it will have on the general fund reserve,” said Scott Ogus, representing the finance department. “We’re concerned about the capacity of the reserve to absorb this significant augmentation of expenditures.” According to Dan Chick, director of government affairs at Health Net, the Medi-Cal managed care plans may not have enough providers in-network to handle the proposal. “Whether we even have enough ABA providers in our network, I will go and check on that, but it is a bit concerning to know, if we don’t have this type of network established, we would have to do so in such a very short period of time,” Chick said. The trailer bill language passed subcommittee on a bipartisan 3-0 vote.
Thank you to Louis Vismara, M.D., Policy Consultant to California Senator Darrell Steinberg, for sharing this information.
The Marin Autism Collaborative (MAC) came together to identify and address the service needs of all ages of individuals on the autistic spectrum and their families. Our members include family members, service agencies, educators, non-profit organizations, medical and therapeutic professionals, and government organizations.