Search This Blog

Wednesday, October 3, 2018

Medi-Cal and Behavioral Health Treatment

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss state Medicaid services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities

A release from CARD:
Center for Autism and Related Disorders (CARD) welcomes the announcement from the State of California's Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) that Medi-Cal will cover behavioral health treatment, including applied behavior analysis (ABA), regardless of an eligible beneficiary's diagnosis. Earlier this year, DHCS announced that Medi-Cal enrollees under 21 whose diagnosis may benefit from ABA, as determined by a physician or psychologist, have access to behavioral health treatment.
"ABA has been shown to be effective in the treatment of many diagnoses, such as substance use disorder, Down Syndrome, and eating disorders, to name a few," said Michelle LaBruzzi, MA, BCBA. "We are looking forward to expanding the families we can help in addition to those in the autism community."
...
"We are happy to see California take the lead in expanding access to applied behavior analysis for our Medi-Cal community," said Doreen Granpeesheh, PhD, BCBA-D, founder of CARD.
In addition to traditional 1:1 intensive ABA programs, CARD offers focused ABA programs and several targeted programs, including feeding, pill swallowing, social skills groups, short and long-term treatment of severe problem behavior, and more focused parent training. Parents and caregivers are encouraged to participate in parent/caregiver training, which is available during non-traditional work hours and online