medically Unnecessary series

Florida bill seeks to make state-run children's insurance more 'cost-efficient'

Joe Mario Pedersen

Legislators are working to make Children's Medical Services more cost-efficient by transferring its operations to another agency. Critics think it could stymie care for kids.

Breana Dion, of Lakeland, holds her daughter, Kamila. The 6-year-old was born with a large amount of medical complexities including respiratory and heart issues, autism, and a condition called Hypogammaglobulinemia, which is characterized by low levels of immunoglobulins (antibodies) in the blood.

Health News Florida

Medically Unnecessary: Florida Healthy Kids won’t cover drug for chronically ill child

Joe Mario Pedersen

Part 2 in a series: After thousands of families lost Medicaid, many enrolled their children with complex needs in Florida Healthy Kids, a state insurance plan that wasn’t meant to cover their special care.

(Left) Jasmine Smith and her 5-year-old son, Omari, live in Leesburg. Omari was born not breathing due to his condition of hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. He’s had breathing problems ever since. He was also diagnosed with spastic cerebral palsy. He requires a lot of care including private duty, nursing, speech, OT and PT, and pureed formula foods. The nursing and food alone costs about $20,000 a month, Smith said.

Health News Florida

Medically Unnecessary: Kids with complex needs moved to state insurance that doesn’t help

Joe Mario Pedersen

We begin a four-part series examining how children with complex medical needs are fairing after losing Medicaid in the unwinding and being pushed onto state-run insurance not designed for their needs.