In Colorado, child autism services are recovering after emergency reimbursement changes

Months after emergency Medicaid reimbursement rates were increased, providers of severe autism treatment for children in Colorado are on the rise.

Parents like Deshalia Mims say they see better access to care.

“My son was diagnosed when he was two years old. I first noticed it when he was no longer so verbal,” Deshalia Mims said. “He was on at least six waiting lists.”

Thanks to his experience with BehaviorSpan, her son is now doing well at his new school.

“BehaviorSpan is a local Colorado company that provides ABA early intervention services for children with autism and developmental delays,” said CEO JJ Tomash.

Tomash said they now have two centers offering applied behavior analysis therapy, an expansion he said had to be put on hold just a few months ago because of low state Medicaid reimbursement rates.

“It was a challenge to pay the rent. It was a challenge to acquire new customers. Just paying the salaries and what do we have to do with where we were and what we got,” he said.

After months of sharing personal stories from families and providers Issuethe state’s Joint Budget Committee approved an emergency increase.

“The attitude has changed compared to last year. Everyone is excited about the future and has plans they didn’t have before. … For example, let’s open a new center,” Tomash said.

That’s exactly what they did. In April, BehaviorSpan opened a second, much larger location. Mims’ son now attends this new center.

“It has changed a lot. I have time for my son again. We can do more things, he can communicate more. He’s made so much progress here,” Mims said.

The expansion was enough to clear their waiting lists and gives them room to grow.

“We have overcome the first hurdle. What they did got us back to where we should be. We hope that we will remain where we should be in the future and that we will not fall back again,” Tomash added.

A Medicaid review board will continue to regularly review reimbursement rates to ensure they remain competitive going forward.