NPR
By: Jonel Aleccia
Unable to walk or talk, barely able to see or hear, 5-year-old Maddie Holt of Everett, Wash., waits in her wheelchair for a ride to the hospital. The 27-pound girl is dressed in polka-dot pants and a flowered shirt for the trip, plus a red headband with a sparkly bow, two wispy blond ponytails poking out on top of her head.
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Called non-emergency medical transportation, or NEMT, the benefit is as old as Medicaid itself. It requires the transport of certain people to and from medical services like mental health counseling sessions, substance abuse treatment, dialysis, physical therapy, adult day care and, in Maddie’s case, visits to specialists.
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At least three states — Iowa, Indiana and Kentucky — have received federal waivers and extensions allowing them to cut Medicaid transportation services. Massachusetts has a waiver pending. Critics of the cuts worry the trend will accelerate, leaving poor and sick patients with no way to get to medical appointments. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of these waivers in the pipeline,” says Joan Alker, executive director of the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families.
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