‘Every phone call is a trauma.’ Idaho’s foster care system to see a boost in support, By Bill Dentzer, March 10, 2017, Idaho Statesman: “Idaho’s child welfare system, the subject of a legislative performance review released in February, is getting some of the additional resources that state evaluators said were needed to address staff burnout, underserved foster families and other issues. Safety of children is not an issue and the system is not in crisis, evaluators and foster care workers are quick to note. Caseloads are in fact lower now than they were in 2007, the last time the Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluation took a look. But caseload is different from workload…”
Tag: Idaho
Child Welfare System – Idaho
Study: Idaho’s child welfare system overwhelmed, overworked, By Associated Press and Samantha Wright, February 8, 2017, Boise State Public Radio: “State auditors say Idaho’s child welfare system is overwhelmed, with too few foster parents, too heavy caseloads for social workers and not enough infrastructure to hold it all together. The study from the Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations found that the number of foster parents has decreased by 8 percent since 2014, while social workers are dealing with 28 to 38 percent more cases than they can reasonably handle…”
Medicaid and Dental Care – Idaho
Dentists push for higher pay from Idaho Medicaid, By Audrey Dutton, February 17, 2016, Idaho Statesman: “Jack Klure has been working as a dentist for 40 years, half of those in the Boise area. He sees 30 to 40 paying customers a week who have private health insurance or pay cash. But he and other Idaho dentists say they have given up on seeing Medicaid patients — a group that includes many Idaho children — because the government health insurance doesn’t pay enough, so they are pushing for higher reimbursement rates. The state’s Medicaid reimbursement rate to dentists is slightly below the national average. As a percentage of the dentists’ full-price fee, reimbursements have decreased about 25 percent over the past 10 years, according to the American Dental Association…”