As of June 29, 2015, the budget for the State of Illinois remains at an impasse.  According to James Dimas, Secretary of DHS, your therapists “will be compensated for continuing to provide these services, though we cannot make payment for services performed after June 30th until a balanced budget is passed.”

This means that the Clubhouse, along with hundreds of other speech, physical, developmental and occupational therapists will receive no payment for services until a “balanced budget” is passed. There is no guarantee that they will be paid the existing contracted rate. The time frame for a balanced budget to be passed is unknown, and most providers cannot go without income until the State gets beyond this longstanding impasse.

What does this mean to families? At this point we do not know. We assume that some providers will leave the system and that fewer providers will come into the system. There is some question regarding Service Coordination and whether the contracted agencies that provide this for you can sustain not being paid for an indefinite period of time. The Clubhouse serves hundreds of EI families each week and will see how this issue plays out.

In the meantime, we urge families to carefully examine their insurance policies to determine what their cost will be in the event that their provider exits the IE system.

Click here to learn more about payment solutions at The Clubhouse!