What Else Do I Need to Know About the Kentucky Child Health Insurance Plan?
Many children are provided with health insurance by their parents or through their parents’ employer, but many times that health insurance is less than perfect. Child health insurance often does not cover the types of things that children need most, and if you have only partial insurance coverage, you may want to get assistance from the state of Kentucky to help you supplement that coverage so that your child does not go without. Unfortunately, you can’t get KCHIP if your kid is already insured, no matter how sparely. What you can do is apply for Medicaid.
If you choose to cancel your insurance policy and get KCHIP, then your child may have to wait six months before they can receive child health insurance coverage through this state insurance plan. This will never be the case for families who make little enough to qualify for KCHIP and not be required to pay a premium. However, if you are trying to insure a previously covered infant and your income is at least 186% of the federal poverty level, then you will have to wait six months. The same applies to any child up to the age of eighteen whose family makes at least 156% of the federal poverty level. If you lost your insurance in circumstances that you could not take charge of, you can get this waiting period waived.
There are children who may have been previously insured but who do not need to wait, nor pay a premium, in order to receive KCHIP. They are able to be insured as soon as they are approved, regardless of how they came to be uninsured. These children include those between the ages of one and five whose parents make at least 134% of the federal poverty level, and at least 150%; and kids between six and eighteen whose parents make at least 101% and at most 150%.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Yearly renewal of Kentucky Child Health Insurance Plan
Once you have KCHIP, you can’t just take it for granted and plan to do nothing else from then on. Sure, there the monthly premium payments for some families, but the plan requires a bit more upkeep than that. In order to make sure that you are still eligible, Kentucky requires you to apply over again each year to determine if you can qualify for state provided child health insurance. This application process is a lot easier than the one that you had to go through in the first place, but it still requires quite a bit from you.
The month that falls before the last month of a twelve month period, the KCHIP office will send you a renewal form in the mail. You will have to fill out this renewal form with your family and your child’s current information, not the information used to apply in the first place. You will have to state and prove current income and any type of current insurance that is not KCHIP, even if it is not for the child.
You can’t just mail the renewal form in, though, sadly. You have to go up to a local DCBS office on or before the first day of the twelveth month of coverage. You will also be required to bring certain documents that you had to bring before, such as paycheck stubs for two months, in order to prove that the family is still at an income level where they need child health insurance coverage through KCHIP. If you don’t make it in by the first, that is not your last chance. A final notice will be mailed to you that will provide you with instructions of how you are still able to renew your child’s coverage. If you lose or ignore this final notice, your child will lose his or her coverage at the end of the twelveth month.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
Losing Kentucky Child Health Insurance Plan
Sometimes even the twenty dollar per month premium required by the Kentucky Child Health Insurance Plan is too much, and you can lose your coverage for your child by either failing to pay the premium or failing to renew the coverage at the end of the twelve month cycle. When you do this, you will have to go to a local DBCS office to reapply for KCHIP coverage. Your coverage is not immediately canceled after missing one payment, but rather immediately after you miss your second payment. If you manage to apply the same day that you lose your coverage, there will be no gap.
If you lose your coverage, you will owe $20 of past due premium payments. If you make this payment, then you will be able to reapply.You don’t have to wait any certain amount of time to reapply after you have made the past due payment. The same process goes for when you reapply, and you will have to double the premium pay for the first month and it must be made within two months of your receipt of the premium payment bill.
If the reason that you couldn’t afford to pay the last premium was because of a significant change in finances, then it’s possible that you may be eligible for Medicaid instead of KCHIP. If this is the case with you, then you should try applying for Medicaid instead of KCHIP. If you get aproved to receive Medicaid assistance for your child, then you don’t have to pay the past due KCHIP premium. If you don’t, though, you are required to pay it for the next twelve months. If that much time passes, then you can re apply for KCHIP without paying the past due amount.
Cheers,
Fashun Guadarrama.
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