In the meantime, I'm going to follow through on my promise to list what DHS wants to know at a Medicaid Screening. That's a phone call or office visit where you give them the info on the applicant, and they let you know if it's even worth going further. The most frustrating part for me was how hard it was to get ahold of people at these offices. I realize it's an issue of underfunding and understaffing, but it's still maddening. I can't exactly take phone calls while I'm teaching, so we got into a pattern of me calling during my prep, them returning the call the next morning around 10 am, me calling back and getting voice mail again...I finally got a sympathetic receptionist to email the social worker and ask her to please take my call, because she knew the SW was in her office right then.
When you do finally get a human on the line, this is what they need to know about the applicant:
- social security number
- date of birth
- full name
- current address
- emergency contact names and numbers
- primary care doctor and contact info
- diagnoses
- income and financial resources (They wanted to know exactly how much he had in each bank account)
- isurance programs and numbers for medical, life, and burial insurance
- monthly expenses--rent, utilities, medical bills, insurance on house, car, etc.
- medication
- what daily funcitons the applicant can and can't perform on their own (walk, dress, feed, shower, cook, laundry, etc.)
- cognitive ability
It took me awhile to even figure out who to call. If you're in Oregon, they're at this website:
http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/spwpd/offices.shtml#washington
It's Department of Human Services, Seniors and People with Disabilities division.
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