Post by pavel on Apr 11, 2016 17:59:12 GMT -6
When Brianna Dupuie was a year old, a babysitter shook her so hard she had a stroke that paralyzed her right side. Everything Brianna had learned to do — how to walk, crawl and speak — was erased.
In the seven years since the incident, Medicaid has covered the cost of intensive weekly physical, occupational and speech therapy sessions to help Brianna, who lives in Driftwood, overcome learning and physical deficits — a service granted to her because she was a former foster child.
“Having Medicaid has been a Godsend,” Brianna’s mother Dena Dupuie said. “We haven’t had to worry about that part of the financial burden.”
However, $350 million in Medicaid payment cuts — $150 million of it hitting acute therapy providers — approved by the Legislature last year threatens to reduce the number of therapists and stall progress for Brianna and an estimated 60,000 other Texas children with disabilities who rely on the subsidized health care coverage for such therapies.
Read more: specials.mystatesman.com/medicaid-therapy-cuts/
In the seven years since the incident, Medicaid has covered the cost of intensive weekly physical, occupational and speech therapy sessions to help Brianna, who lives in Driftwood, overcome learning and physical deficits — a service granted to her because she was a former foster child.
“Having Medicaid has been a Godsend,” Brianna’s mother Dena Dupuie said. “We haven’t had to worry about that part of the financial burden.”
However, $350 million in Medicaid payment cuts — $150 million of it hitting acute therapy providers — approved by the Legislature last year threatens to reduce the number of therapists and stall progress for Brianna and an estimated 60,000 other Texas children with disabilities who rely on the subsidized health care coverage for such therapies.
Read more: specials.mystatesman.com/medicaid-therapy-cuts/