Why no medicaid for some BM's
I think there was a post this week that asked why an agency would not try and get a BM on medicaid. I was stumped because I knew I had paid the medical for our BM and she was not on medicaid. Everything happened so quick for us and money wasn't really an issue in that case (even with medical costs H's adoption was less than most other cases we had been shown without medical) so I didn't ask at the time. We literally matched with H the day after the agency got our application so we just didn't go through the normal information in detail with the agency.
Anyway, I asked them this week about the medicaid thing and if the reason that our BM wasn't eligible was because she was induced. They sent me a very sweet and informative answer. I've been traveling and quickly read it on my blackberry but here is the long and short of it.
In 2008, their attorney told them that their state (Utah) was cracking down on medicaid claims. The way our agency works is that they house the birthparents in their own facility (apartments) and cover all of their living expenses before the pregnancy as well as take them to their doctor appointments, counseling sessions,etc. Since most of their BM's are from out of state they are not eligible for medicaid in Utah because they don't plan to stay long term. (most leave after being discharged and are only living there 3-4 months) Some states may allow them to try and apply in their home state but few will and hardly any will cover the cost since the birth happened in another state.
They said that as an agency they made the decision to try and protect all involved and did not want to have a financial crisis where a family takes placement and then medicaid rejects the BM and the adoptive family can not handle the additional costs. They have therefore worked out a deal where there is a reduced medical rate at the local hospitals for adoptive parents.
I don't know about the other 99.9% of BM's who don't go on medicaid, but wanted to share what I learned from our agency. ?
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Re: Why no medicaid for some BM's
I meant to follow-up post on this topic last week. I found out that if the b-mom is moved from her home state to another state then she cannot file for medicaid.
I specifically had posted about heart to heart - and I met some adoptive moms last weekend who cleared up h2h for me. Since they do move moms to their state and in their facility this is why they can't apply for medicaid. They state that they find it best for the e-mom to do this.
However, at least one of the adoptive mom's experience is that it seems even more stressful to the e-mom to moved away from her family/friends and 'familiarity'. Since that agency doesn't 'back-up financially' their matches - you could lose some of that money anyway - so some feel that they would rather just pay living expenses to the e-mom and then have medicaid take care of the medical costs.
Our agency has a medicaid expert on staff to and made every effort to sign up ALL e-moms/b-moms who do not have insurance. Even in our situation where G's b-mom did not have insurance nor did she sign up for medicaid our agency was able to have it retro-activated. We have paid like 50 bucks in medical bills.
I'm sure that SOME agencies do have a 99% average for e-moms not having medicaid or insurance but that might just be because a) they move e-moms out of their home states, b) they don't have a medicaid expert on staff to help navigate these waters for adoptive parents (shame), c) the agency doesnt feel it is their place to navigate such waters for adoptive parents (another exploitation of adoptive parents financially IMO).
This is why when ppl ask about what to look for in an agency my top things are: 1) what support to they offer the e-moms, 2) what monitoring/counseling happens BEFORE they match - too many agencies prematurely match which results in failures, 3) do they financially 'back-up' their matches so that you have no 'at-risk' fees aside from travel and your own legal, 4) do they have a medicaid expert on staff.
We will use american adoptions for our second adoption definitely but if we didn't, I wouldn't work with an agency that doesn't have an insurance expert on staff. We pay more for this service through the over-all agency fees but I feel it is worth me paying an extra few thousand dollars if it saves me 7-10k in potential medical fees