![]() The agency was paying lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars to fend off demands for medical services which would have cost only a fraction of what was frittered away on legal fees. Warped priorities similarly dogged the state’s Neurological Injury Compensation Association (NICA), which was created in 1988 to guarantee lifetime care for children with serious neurological birth injuries (in return for not filing malpractice suits).Ī joint investigation by ProPublica and the Miami Herald in 2021 found that while NICA was regularly denying afflicted children medication, medical equipment, wheelchairs, therapy and in-home nursing care, program managers were hoarding $1.5 billion (amassed from annual fees paid by the state’s physicians) in a fat investment fund. Sorry kids, but with underfunded social services and overwhelmed, underpaid social workers, nurses and caregivers, Florida gets what it pays for. Newspaper exposés have regularly described gut-wrenching stories of neglect, mistreatment and deaths suffered by Florida kids in foster care and juvenile lock-ups. State care of vulnerable children has generated scandal after scandal over the years. Besides, Florida’s chintzy reimbursement rates rendered reliable in-home nursing services tough to find. His order stated that the evidence was “overwhelming.” Yet, AHCA strung out the litigation for a decade.Īpparently, Medicaid managed-care providers found it more convenient to institutionalize the kids. ![]() The judge added, “If provided adequate services, most of these children could thrive in their own homes, nurtured by their own families.” I am convinced of this after listening to the evidence, hearing from the experts, and touring one of these facilities myself.” “Those who are institutionalized are spending months, and sometimes years of their youth isolated from family and the outside world. “Any family who wants to care for their child at home should be able to do so,” the judge wrote. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |