One of the key responsibilities of a child support agency is to help children in its caseload gain access to medical coverage with an emphasis on health insurance that is available and accessible at reasonable cost.  This service promotes the well-being of children and also helps mitigate the rising costs of public health programs such as Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) by holding parents primarily responsible for providing medical support.

Federal statutes and regulations require the establishment and enforcement of medical support orders.  In an effort to identify medical support impediments and recommend changes, the secretaries of the federal Departments of Health and Labor established a Medical Support Working Group. 

In its final report in 2000, the Working Group made numerous recommendations to improve medical support establishment and enforcement. The federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) strongly supports the improvement of medical support and placed strong emphasis on this issue in its 2005-2009 National Child Support Enforcement Strategic Plan.  In fact, one of OCSE’s five goals for the IV-D program is “all children in IV-D cases have medical coverage.”

With the new regulations, the impending medical support incentive measure, and the data reliability audits, states must ensure that medical support is ordered and enforced on behalf of the children in their caseloads and that medical support records meet federal audit standards. These tasks can be daunting, especially when added to the other mandatory functions of a IV-D agency.  Successful medical support establishment and enforcement requires a systematic approach, continual outreach, and follow-up to ensure requirements for forms completion, submission, and insurance coverage are met.

Fortunately, medical support enforcement provides an ideal opportunity for collaboration between the public and private sectors.  A qualified vendor can help verify and clean up medical support records on the automated child support system and pursue establishment and enforcement of health insurance coverage.

YoungWilliams keeps abreast of developments in medical support and has the subject matter expertise and experience necessary to meet the needs of IV-D agencies in this specialized field.  As your partner, we will help you implement a fully compliant medical support program that will meet your short and long-term goals and prepare your organization for the implementation of medical support incentives.  We are eager to help you make a difference in the lives of children.