Children’s Therapy Center of the Quad Cities provides physical and mental therapy for around 500 children a year, but says it needs help from lawmakers to provide those services.
The Rock Island clinic’s focus is on children who have been in traumatic accidents and those who have physical or auditory disabilities.
They will treat any child regardless of what insurance they have, but also have a waitlist in the hundreds.
Ninety percent of those patients fall under Medicaid, which even before the federal cuts did not get provide reimbursement from each appointment. The cuts are part of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill, signed earlier this year. The bill changes eligibility and documentation requirements and cuts nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid over 10 years.
Vice President of Operations Chris VanSpeybroeck said the organization is concerned about those cuts.
“We have a lot of needs, and we’re having some challenges arising now, especially with the new legislation that was passed earlier this year, we are well concerned that the Medicaid cuts are going to affect our bottom line,” VanSpeybroeck said.
Patients using Medicaid account for 25% of their revenue. The rest comes from fundraising and grants.
“But that 25% of our revenue is important, and we want to make sure that Congressman (Eric Sorensen) understands us and is able to advocate for us when those are possibly impacted by the new legislation,” VanSpeybroeck said.
Sorensen, D-Moline, came to visit the center Monday afternoon. He spoke with the center’s team on what challenges they were facing before getting a tour of the facility.
VanSpeybroeck said he wanted the congressman to get a sense of their operations and why it is vital to the community.
Sorensen was supportive of the center and critical of the federal Medicaid cuts.
“It is not about finding the waste, the fraud or the abuse. We’re all for that, right, but when you just lop it off, right? There are real repercussions for that. There are parents that are no longer going to be able to get what their kids need, the therapy that those kids are going to need. So, this has a real effect. This isn’t about playing politics. It’s about talking about what is happening today and how we are going to fix it,” Sorensen said.
But the clinic also faces long waitlists mostly due to the lack of available specialized therapists in the area. VanSpeybroeck said these challenges do not only come from the federal level but also the state level.
When the clinic hires recent therapists, they have to be credentialed with each insurance company, and in that time, they do not get reimbursed.
“During that time, they can treat children, but we’re not reimbursed. It would be nice if there was a way that the state could change that so we could get paid for those first two or three months. It’s difficult when your reimbursements are low to begin with,” VanSpeybroeck said.
The clinic has also spoken with state representatives and former state representatives about their concerns.
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