Doing the math on the autism waiver
Saturday, March 6, 2010 
Arkansas is slowly starting its new autism Medicaid waiver. With “only” $1,500,000 in funds each year, the waiver will only be able to serve about 100 children in the state. Each child would get services for three years. With the severe shortage of specialists throughout the state, it’s hard to imagine many providers of the autism waiver outside of the Northwest corridor and Little Rock.
On the other hand let’s see what happens if the $1,500,000 was transferred to education training. The STAR ABA program for elementary schools costs about $17,000 for extensive training of staff and onsite visits. It takes about 18 months to establish the STAR program, so in three years 176 schools would be able to educate young students with autism, Down’s, and many other disabilities. And some of the best STAR programs in the state are tucked away in rural school districts.
100 students or 176 schools in three years.
And while I’m obviously a fan of the STAR program, I do hope that other groups besides Easter Seals Arkansas and the Arkansas Department of Education can provide training. Let each district choose its trainers in a competitive setting.
Eye Contact Arkansas | Comments Off | Email Article | Share Article | Permalink | in Autism Therapy, Autism Training, Autism Waiver, Medicaid, State Education in General
Reader Comments (1)
Yes, when I went to the introduction about this new waiver program I was very disappointed at how few people it will help. It was admitted that it probably would be the bigger cities that have the services needed, that will be assigned to this program. The rural areas will simply be out of luck again.
But then what is expected of a state that gets an F on the NAMI report card for 2009?