ORLANDO, Fla. — Parents of children with disabilities are concerned about changes coming to Florida Medicaid services.

  • Fla. AHCA says changes on the way for Florida Medicaid services
  • Meeting April 18 to educate parents on changes to services
  • One parent worries with more cuts, her child's progress might be hindered

One parent says after years of frequent changes, she recently got a letter from Florida’s Agency For Health Care Administration informing her there would be changes coming to services she says have been crucial to her son’s development.

“The first thing it said was don’t worry, and the first thing I did was worry, because if you’re going to tell me not to worry there’s something behind it, I need to worry about,” said Kelly Steffee, whose son Liam has autism.

Steffee says since Liam has been getting help from OCA, an Orange County behavior analysis services provider, he’s made huge progress. The family can now go out to eat – something they couldn’t do before.

But Steffee says since Liam’s been getting applied behavior analysis, Florida Medicaid administrators have repeatedly changed the requirements for children to stay eligible for the state-covered services.  And Steffee recently got a letter from the AHCA saying more changes are coming by July 2019.

The founder of OCA says they’ll be getting paid less for their services, which could reduce the amount of children they can help.

“There are children all over the state on a waiting list because of our inability to hire more staff,” said Margaret Thornton, OCA’s founder and director. “The children are not getting the help they need, the families are getting frustrated, and now the process is going to get even more complicated.”

Steffee worries with more cuts, Liam may not be able to get the help he needs.

Spectrum News 13 reached out to the Agency for Health Care Administration for Florida and asked them why the state is making the changes.  A spokesperson says AHCA is working on a response.

Steffee says there’s a meeting for April 18 to help educate other parents about the upcoming changes the state is making to behavior services.