Take Action! Make the Medicaid ABA Benefit available to families!

It’s time to flex our advocacy muscles and let our Texas Legislators and leadership know that we expect the state agency in charge of “Improving the health, safety and well-being of Texans with good stewardship of public resources” to immediately implement the Medicaid IBI/ABA Services Benefit.

You might remember advocating last session in 2019 for the passage of the Medicaid Autism Benefit.  And you may have heard that the program would be available in Spring of 2020. Unfortunately all progress stopped in December of 2019 and the program appears to be on indefinite hold.

We need your help! 

Please send an e-mail or call your representatives in both the Texas House and Texas Senate and tell them that HHSC must immediately implement Rider 32, the Medicaid IBI/ABA Services Benefit, to support families who desperately need these intensive, life-changing therapies.

We’ve developed three information sheets to remind you of the history of the program and to answer any questions that legislative staff may have.

Who Represents Me? – Use this online database to find your representative – remember some of Texas’ districts are so gerrymandered that you will have to include your full address to find your representative.

Keep in mind when making calls that many people are working from home so you may need to leave a short but informative message with your contact information for a call-back or give them that AST’s advocacy team contact information: 512-479-4199 Ext.10, or advocacy@texasautismsociety.org.

We encourage you to tell your own stories about how important this issue is to you, but if you need one – there’s a script below.

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Script:

Hello, my name is ______ .  May I speak to the staff member in charge of Medicaid or Health and Human Services issues.

• Stress the importance of the Medicaid IBI/ABA Services Benefit
• Use your own stories or talk about how this benefits the entire autism community
• The ASK: Please consider sending a letter or directly contacting HHS leadership to encourage the immediately implementation of  Rider 32, (the Medicaid IBI/ABA Services Benefit) to support families who desperately need these intensive, life-changing therapies
• Thank the staff member for their time and ask if you can send them more information on this crucial issue.

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Let us know if you were successful or if AST Advocacy staff need to do any follow-ups at 512-479-4199 Ext:10 or  advocacy@texasautismsociety.org

AND,

If you have time – there’s a group of important legislators and leadership that also needs to hear from you.

To get on our Advocacy alert email list please sign up here: https://tinyurl.com/ASTAdvocacy