AASA Leads Letter of Support on Proposed IDEA Medicaid Regulation

Today, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services is ending a comment period on a proposed regulation that would amend IDEA’s parental consent requirement to bill Medicaid. This is a critical regulatory revision that would make it much simpler for districts to pull down critical Medicaid reimbursements that are used to pay for specialized instructional support personnel and special education programming for students. Unlike any other Medicaid provider, districts must obtain special and distinct consent from parents to bill Medicaid. As AASA and others have documented in recent months, obtaining parental permission to bill Medicaid is a fraught and confusing process. We have urged the U.S. Department of Education for years to amend this provision to streamline the reimbursement process for districts since it legally has no negative impact on students who rely on Medicaid for services outside of school. While we have heard anecdotally about Medicaid denying claims for private services when school-based services are delivered these are errors on the part of the State Medicaid Agency and are not the fault of the district. Everything should be done to ensure that both districts and State Medicaid Agencies are correctly billing for services to avoid any issues for students and to maximize the supports and services children receive inside and outside of school.

AASA was proud to lead this comment letter on the proposed regulation signed by a host of prominent education organizations including: the National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, the Council of Administrators for Special Education, National Association of School Nurses.