First up is Shriner's Hospital. http://www.shrinershq.org/
The one in Sacramento helps burn victims, spina-bifida, all sorts of hands and feet and legs and arm problems for children under the age of 18. They have very skilled, and very experienced surgeons, geneticists, and specialists who work in such specialized fields that they are much more qualified than regular surgeons. Their anesthesiologists only work on children, which means that they are even more sensitive to a tiny child's needs. This puts my mind at ease. The best part is, that if you are accepted your child's treatment is completely free until they turn 18! This is the first thing I applied for, as it was a more well-known hospital. But UC Davis Medical Center (across the street) also is an excellent facility and often share doctors with Shriner's.
Next is SSI. Supplemental Security Income. http://www.ssa.gov/pgm/links_ssi.htm
It's a government funded program that, if your child qualifies for, can provide extra money to assist with your family's needs. This helps out a lot if you are taking a lot of trips to the hospital and working on treatments.
Then there is CCS (California Children Services).
http://www.dhcs.ca.gov/services/ccs/Pages/default.aspx
This is a really great state-funded program that helps children in 2 ways; as a supplemental insurance and also as a therapy treatment facility. For Elijah, we were able to get into the program for therapy and treatment. They also work on his braces and supply any utensils and specially made devices that assist in his development.
For Noah, they assisted in his insurance. Because he was a Preemie, Noah had to stay in the NICU for 4 days. That ended up being about $20k. We applied for CCS because he was a preemie, and he qualified. They paid for his ENTIRE stay. Once you qualify for CCS, you are also eligible to qualify for medi-cal.People, this is a seriously amazing program totally worth looking into.
Ofcourse, there is Medi-Cal. http://www.medi-cal.ca.gov/
If your child qualifies for it, it can pay for all your child's medical expences and acts as an insurance. In our case, we have medical insurance, so we use Medi-Cal as a secondary insurance. When I was pregnant with Elijah, we used it as a primary insurance and it covered everything. In Redding, a lot of doctors don't like to deal with Medi-Cal, but Dr. Lagoc accepts patients that have Medi-Cal as a secondary insurance. If you are a family on a tight budget, I highly reccomend applying for this program. You shouldn't have to keep your child from going to the doctor because you can't afford it.
Also there is Shasta Head Start. http://www.shastaheadstart.org/
This is a North State program, but there are other Head Start programs just like this all over the country. If you're not in Redding, I encourage you to look into this. This is an educational program that helps children from 0-3 years old through developmental therapy. They come to your home and work with your kids once a week. It's a great program because they can help you in such a wide variety of ways from playing, to speech, to development issues, to nutrition. They even sent a nurse to my house to help me with feeding Noah. They work on treating the WHOLE child, not just the one area that they are behind. They have really grown to be Elijah's good friends, and I am so thankful for this program. More to blog about this later.
Another great group is Rowell Family Empowerment. http://www.rfenc.org/index.php
It's an advocacy group for families with children with special needs. It's actually a great program that helps you deal with the education system and provides assistance and support as your child grows. It also helps maintain California laws regarding children with special needs.
There are so many more programs that I am probably not familiar with, I just wanted to list these services so that people knew what was available for their children. We are the only advocates our children will ever have.
No comments:
Post a Comment