This is the tree upon which I am banging my head bloody, at least metaphorically. My adopted kids had an adoption subsidy, a nice amount of money which paid for some good camps in the summer and tutoring and stuff like that. More importantly the subsidy insured that they were covered by Medicaid. There were a number of years in there when we not have needed the subsidy, it was nice, it gave us flexibility to meet some of their unique needs and wants, but it wasn't the food on the table.Well, now it is the food on the table for my son, ever since my husband's business tanked along with the economy, we have been scraping by. So now, for the last two months they haven't sent us the subsidy check and my son is no longer on medicaid. The medicine costs alone for his seizure meds are close to $600.00 a month and add in his mood stabilizer and his ADHD meds and we are not able to afford this.
So I have been fighting with the subsidy folks. He is supposed to receive the subsidy until his 19th birthday or his high school graduation whichever comes first. His 19th birthday is not until late next Spring (2009) and he isn't scheduled to graduate until then either. The problem, I am homeschooling him so they don't consider him still in school. Now I have home schooled him since 4th grade and the public school system had no problem recognizing us as a legitimate home school. So I am not sure why the subsidy folks are having so much trouble with this concept.
Tomorrow I get to go have a face to face meeting with our subsidy worker, fun, fun. I will have to go into the big city and sit around in the waiting room with other interesting clients of the social services system until I get called to his domain and we can hash this out. I am not terribly optimistic but i have to fight for his rights. We cannot discontinue the seizure meds because then he will have a seizure and those hospital bills would not be covered, Yikes! not to mention the damage to him that the seizures cause.
I am not a terribly confrontational person and in situations like this I always assume that the problem must be the result of some mistake I have made. This does not make for a good bargaining position. So I am going to try to buck up and be strong. We need the medical card, we need the money.
Wish me luck.
4 comments:
I hate confrontations and will run to California and back to avoid them. Unfortunately I had to learn how to fight with social services. The key to our "success" was I. Never.Shut.Up.
I was the fly in their ointment every stinking day. I hated doing it but there were things that J had to have. Funny thing is that for me it's easier if I'm fighting someone else's battle. If it were for myself I'd still be running like Forrest Gump.
You can do this. Go get'em tiger!
Thanks for the cheerleading Lisa, I will try to remember your words.
I think I could handle this better if I wasn't also currently fighting Medicaid for my daughter's residential placement and the school system over some accomodations for my youngest daughter's medical issues.
I am getting it on all fronts and all I want to do is curl up in a ball and stick out my spines like a porcupine.
I avoid phone calls and meetings like the plague. But, like Lisa, Tara requires many of both. We had to fight for the Medicaid for her too. I believe you need to reapply when kids turn 18. Stupid rule. As though a child's disability suddenly disappears on that magic birthday. I hope you get your subsidy reinstated. Can you get a letter from your local school district or a copy of your homeschooling agreement with them to bring to the meeting? Our adoption worker warned us that, with the economic crisis, that states are going to get very "lean" about their adoption subsidies and foster care rates.
I will be rooting for you. Just picture Lisa and I with pom poms standing behind you cheering!!!
Good luck on this - you deserve better than you are getting in life right now. I'll be praying for you daily.
Brenda
http://www.theadoptioncounselor.com
Post a Comment