UF establishes national center on financing health care for children with special needs

Supported by a $1.4 million federal grant, the University of Florida has established a national center focused on finding ways to fund health care for children living with chronic medical or psychological conditions.

The Maternal and Child Health Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services awarded UF the funding to establish the National Center on Financing for Children with Special Health Care Needs.

“The new center will work to develop better financing and reimbursement strategies for those caring for children with special health-care needs in order to ensure they receive the care they need,” said Betsy Shenkman, Ph.D., an associate professor in the College of Medicine’s department of pediatrics and associate director of UF’s Institute for Child Health Policy, which will house the new center.

“This award represents the culmination of years of research related to the organization, financing and quality of children’s health care,” said Shenkman, director of the new center, which includes faculty from the UF colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy and Business. Researchers from the University of Rochester and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, both in New York, also are involved.

During the next four years, the center will document the use of health care by children with chronic physical, developmental, behavioral and emotional conditions, and develop methods of financing the services they and their families need. It also will develop and test tactics to more adequately reimburse physicians and other health-care providers, health plans and hospitals caring for these children.

The percentage of children possessing special health needs is growing in America, and technological advances are enabling a greater proportion to survive to adulthood, according to the Maternal and Child Health Bureau. About 20 percent of all children confront needs requiring complex and expensive medical care. In addition, special educational programs, and mental health and social services, are often necessary.

“Unfortunately, reimbursement rates for these children’s care are not always appropriate to meet their needs, leaving hospitals, health plans and providers at large financial risk,” Shenkman said. “If the risk is large enough, there is the potential that access to care will be reduced for this very vulnerable population.”