[wrekdiver]

Need some advice from the veterans who have been there....
We signed our "intent to adopt" form yesterday We are really excited but confused on some of the details. The sws had originally said that our fs would keep his medicaid and stipend, but yesterday when they came over it was different. They wanted us to sign a form stating that we would not accept a stipend or his medicaid after adoption.
I was pretty firm (and a little freaked out) that I wanted his medicaid continued because he is still showing significant language delays and his parents have a pretty heavy pscyh history: both parents have bipolar disease and ADD which they recieve meds for. As well, ** has depression and takes meds for this. When he was removed from care, they found drugs in the apartment. It was not mentioned in the "full disclore notice" if he was exposed to drugs in utero so I am assuming DSS does not know one way or the other.
My dh and I are fully prepared to accept that our son will have psych problems in the future. The problem is, our insurance does not cover any psych problems. To placate me, sws said we could "revisit" the issue after we adopt if he needs any care for pscyh or language problems in the future. I don't know if I should trust them on this or not. The sws called today and rehashed our conversation just to make sure she understand that we were concerned about his medicaid/language problems/bp's psych history. But then I don't know how she could have been confused, I thought I was pretty clear about why we wanted to keep his medicaid. Then I offered to just put in a "medicaid clause" stating we would only use for psych/language problem if our insurance did not cover it. Does this seem reasonable to anyone else? Has anyone had a problem years after an adoption and had to go back to DSS for more help?
The other issue was the stipend-we were assured all the way up to yesterday that it would continue but not they are retracting. Their reasoning was that he did not qualify under any of their "labels". But I don't know why they would mention it continuing if he didn't fit into that category. So I asked that they "re-visit" the stipend issue. And then the sws said the oddest thing----well, this is where the "negotiating part comes in". We will talk to our boss to let her know you want that continued.
I don't know what to say, I felt like we were buying a car. Why are we negotiating? If he qualifies for these services then just let him have them and if he doesn't, then just say so.
So my questions are these:
How firm should I be about keeping his stipend and medicaid?
How many times do they try to strongarm adoptive parents before they relent? Will they try to say no a couple of times just to see what we'll do or is this a one time "negotiation" and once they say yea or nay that's it?
My worst fear is this--if I ask them for these services will they think I am trying to "get one over on them" and take A. from us?
Any advice would be truly helpful. thanks

[bumpkin]

Hi

Don't know if this helps, but there is a site you can go to that stipulates all the different states qualifications for receiving stipens and medicaid after adoption. I think itS NCAA (National Association for Children s.... something something...) Sorry, I know it's been mentioned here before so maybe you could do a search under the word subsidies. That way you could show them in black and white where it states he qualifies.

Personally, I would not count on getting anything after the adoption is final, I think that this needs to be negotiated before hand.

[MBelt8402]

Stand firm, get it now. We are in Pa, and we are negotiating right now as well. We have to ask for what we want. And prove she is eligable. I am asking for full stipend and medicaid. I my county in Pa all Fkids are entitled to keep Medicaid, stipend depends on five things. We will negotiate from there.

[Chancey]

In Texas you HAVE to have the agreement up front and the "waiting until after the adotion" is a bunch of baloney!! Additionally, in Texas the child is eligible for state paid college tuition if an adoption subsidy is negotiated up front. I would highly recommend going to this website http://www.nacac.org/subsidy_stateprofiles.html which lists the states and what the requirement is for eligible children.

Just think of this as your first battle in standing up for you son and taking control (negotiating) for what is in his best interest.

[yanknrebel]

DO not be threatened that they will take A away. I can assure you they won't. It costs them money to keep him as a foster child and they will not remove hom because that will mena he will have toadjust and bond to another family. Just stand your ground. IF they try to puu any more ofthis, find out your commissioner;s name (DCS) and talk to them about it. This is for the child, not for you and your family. The child is OWED this. Don't let them take that away from this child. It will be much harder to try and get it later after the adoption than to keep it now.

yanknrebel

[Happy123]

I have had a SW tell me in confidence to get everything in writing up front because once the adoption is final, it is almost impossible to get services. We have adopted out of FC three times and our children get their monthly stipend still along w/ the medical (but it still is not that good--hard to get care). I am in Cali.

I would advise you not to sway on this,
Happy123

[jojobear]

Please Please get everything in writing and everything before the adoption. They will not give it to you after the adoption.
Push for the stiffend and the Medical.

We did for our son.

Jody in Florida

[Nicole Elaine]

I, too, would try very hard to keep his medicaid. But what you said about your insurance not covering "psychological" problems..... that is against the law. By law, insurance providers must cover psychogical conditions just like they do physical ones. You might want to look into this...

[wrekdiver]

thanks to everyone for their advice and support. I'll be posting our progress as always

[westernmom]

At the very least, push for the Medicaid.

I can tell you from experience, our insurance company denied M's mental health benefits. The insurance co. (an HMO) said they had in-house psychologists who could handle his issues. However, they had no one who specialized in former foster child suffering from the effects of severe neglect/abuse. (Heck, I would have taken someone who specialized in abused children - no luck - not a large enough population in this HMO for them to have a specialist).

My point - M sees his psychiatrist every 6-8 weeks for med evals (that's at $120/hour). And his psychologist weekly, that's at $100/hour. Fortunately, he has Medicaid or we'd be paying a boatload of money.

Also, M has sensory integration dysfunction which requires weekly OT. Again, the insurance company denied payment after 6 months as their criteria is to see significant improvement in 2 months (not going to happen). It's about $800/month for OT at the Children's Hospital here.

Also, Medicaid picks up the co-pays for M's doctor visits (not too often) and his medication copays ($60 every 2 months for maintenance drugs) that's $360 a year just for medication.

It adds up quickly. Fortunately, we didn't have to push at all for the subsidy & Medicaid. (Pretty much we got more than I expected.)

My dh did say that if we didn't have either, it would require a significant life style change at our household to get M what he needs (which we'd do in a heartbeat).

In M's case, I look at it as - if the system hadn't sent him back to a biomom twice who'd already had 5 other kids tpr'd & had criminal neglect/abuse charges (among other issues) he wouldn't have most of these issues. This is M's money for the system's screw-up.