SSI Medicaid options

[Guest guest]

Hey there. I'm really hoping that someone out there can help us out. My husband

works for Garland ISD (and I used to as well). Our health insurance specifically

excludes all therapy for children with developmental delays. We are fortunate at

this point to be receiving our speech, p/t and o/t through PIP/ECI, but come

November, our two year old will age out of ECI, and we will no longer have

access to any speech, p/t or o/t services. At the moment, we qualify for SSI,

but as our monthly payment (which just started this week) is $25, I'm guessing

we're nearly at the max where income is concerned. Anyway, I'm guessing that any

sort of teacher raise this fall is going to bump us out of SSI, and will

lose the Medicaid services right before we really need them.

So what are our options? We're a family of five, and our take home pay is $2700

- not enough to pay our regular bills, let alone pay for therapy. We qualify for

CHIP, but I'm so scared about the prospect of dropping off our our

insurance in order to get CHIP for him. It would mean losing our pediatrician

(who we adore), our neurologist, our allergist, you name it....all for the

slight chance that we'd find a local (we're in Rowlett) speech pathologist, o/t

and p/t that would even take CHIP.

Is there anything out there that will help us if/when we lose the SSI? I'm not

looking for income, I'm only looking for basic therapy for him (he needs and

currently receives speech, p/t and o/t with ECI).

Serena