Schools Due Pay For Sending Children To Medicaid Services

School employees who help poor students get federal aid can now collect money for Spokane School District 81.

The school board agreed this week to contract with the state Department of Social and Health Services, which will reimburse the district for linking students and their families with Medicaid services.

Counselors, school nurses - and even principals and teachers - can earn reimbursement for the district by referring children for services such as counseling, health insurance, and doctor and dental visits.

“It eventually results in better learners, more healthy kids,” said Mary Brown, student services supervisor.

“If it usurped our time with kids, it may not be appropriate. But it appears to us it will not.”

While the reimbursement plan has long been offered, only 43 of the state’s 296 school districts have signed on.

“There aren’t that many. It’s real slow-going to get them,” said Diana Larsen-Miller, a DSHS family services manager. She said she isn’t sure why.

Spokane schools turned down a similar DSHS offer a few years ago, said Brown. “It looked like it’d detract time-wise from our work. It’s not what we’re about.”

But new, streamlined paperwork has made the deal more attractive. Besides, Brown said, counselors and other employees already spend time helping kids get medical help and outside counseling when they need it.

School and state officials are hashing out details of the contract.

The Central Kitsap School District was reimbursed about $72,000 for linking kids with federal services last school year, said David Sours, the school alternative programs director.

Last year, one junior high school helped 39 families get Medicaid, he said.

Sours helped one family sign on with Medicaid and get a hearing aid for their young daughter, who’d outgrown hers several months earlier. The district also helped find health insurance for a 17-year-old girl who’d been kicked out of her home.

At first, critics complained educators were edging into a social arena where they don’t belong, Sours said.

“People might complain we have no business doing this.” he said. “That’s probably true, but I’ve never been able to avoid doing this. Now I can recoup some dollars for it.”

, DataTimes