HHS Cuts to Therapy Services For Disabled Kids Softened

Following an outcry from dozens of state lawmakers, Texas’ top health agency announced Thursday it will make less drastic cuts than originally planned to a therapy program for children with disabilities, even if that means spending more than lawmakers budgeted for the program.

Texas Health and Human Services Executive Commissioner Chris Traylor said in a letter to Texas Senate leadership that his agency would work to “preserve access to care even if it means” the full budget cuts lawmakers passed this year “cannot be achieved.”

The announcement comes amid expanding turmoil — including a lawsuit, vocal protests and lawmaker backpedalling — over legislative efforts to trim costs in the Medicaid-reimbursed programs. Therapy providers said the cuts would impede about 60,000 children from getting needed speech, physical and occupational therapy.

State lawmakers this year ordered the health agency to cut $100 million over two years in payments to those therapists. But the therapy providers cried foul, saying many of their businesses would close under what amounted to a roughly 20 percent revenue reduction. Families of children with disabilities, who said they would lose access to medically necessary services, also filed suit against the state. And more than 60 lawmakers, who crafted the budget ordering the cuts, wrote Traylor urging him not to harm the children using the services.

Read more: http://www.texastribune.org/2015/10/01/texas-soften-cuts-therapy-services-disabled-kids/