Transferring from Child Health Plus to Jersey Family Care

amother

Sun, May 18 2014, 9:17 am

Does anyone have an experience transferring their children from Child Health Plus to Jersey Care?

I had Child Health Plus in NY where I paid a monthly premium based on our income. My goal is for the kids to have Jersey Care where I pay a monthly premium and co-pays (as per our income which we do qualify for according to the online charts).

First I applied to Jersey Care online.

I was sent a letter with an appointment to apply for medicaid with my county.

I applied at the appointment and my application was incomplete because I did not have a letter saying Health Plus in New York was no longer covering the children. I asked if the children had to be uninsured for more than three months and was told no, but they did need to currently not have Child Health Plus. I obtained the proper letters and submitted them.

My application was denied for medicaid in my county and referred to the State of New Jersey.

The State of New Jersey denied the children for Jersey Care because they had health coverage within the last 3 months.

I read the laws they are citing and they say someone has to be uninsured for 6 months to qualify. There is also no mention of how to transfer from one state's cost sharing medicaid to Jersey Care.

Does anyone else have experience with this or any advice? I see that my application can be appealed, but I don't know what grounds I have. I can call the county medicaid person who denied us based on income and referred our case to the state, but now I know she was speaking only on behalf of her department and not NJ state which I didn't know to ask about at the time because I didn't understand how everything worked. I also plan to call a social worker who was assigned to one of my children at her last ER visit here.