Parents of kids with disabilities in Iowa can apply for grants to help offset the costs of medical services that traditional insurance plans don’t cover. Iowa News Service says it’s part of a plan by UnitedHealthcare to bridge the gap between high fees for specialty medical services and a family’s ability to pay them. Nearly 34-thousand Iowa children under the age of 18 have disabilities. That’s nearly 5-percent of the state population in that age group. Scott Otto with UnitedHealthcare Children’s Foundation says the insurance provider makes grants available to parents through its foundation, to help cover kids’ medical costs that traditional insurance may reject.
“The goal of these grants is to help alleviate the financial burden that a family might be enduring, where their commercial coverage may not cover, or may not fully cover, the cost of the needed care.”
Parents do have to be enrolled in a traditional health care plan to qualify for the grants, but it does not have to be with UnitedHealthcare. Parents can apply for an annual 5-thousand-dollar grant for each of their kids, but the awards are capped at 10-thousand dollars over a child’s lifetime.
The grants can be used to cover a variety of services, including therapy, prescriptions and medical devices – or even to help offset the cost of major surgeries that may not be covered.
“We certainly can help underwrite some of those costs, but we’re also able to underwrite even just some of the little more day-to-day, kind of drip, drip, drip, kind of cost – the $20 co-pay every time you go to the pharmacy, or every time you go to a physical therapy, or that kind of a visit.”
The foundation has awarded more than 40-thousand grants totaling 80-million dollars since UnitedHealthcare launched the program in 2005. Grant applications are online at ‘U-H-C-C-F-dot-org.’
Courtesy of Iowa News Service.
