Despite their working and middle-class incomes, the families C.A.M.P serve are confronted with just as much, if not more medical debt, than other families. They often have to tap into personal lifetime savings, liquidate personal assets & and even resort to taking out additional mortgages to pay for medically necessary care for their disabled children. Unfortunately, these options place families into further debt, which often for some, never recover from this hardship. And even with these options, they only provide a temporary solution as many of these children will require lifetime medical care for their disabilities. Fortunately for those families, Medicaid waivers are their only hope to securing the additional coverage, and medical care their children need. The way Medicaid waivers work is whatever their primary coverage (usually employer or private health insurance plan) does not cover, the Medicaid waiver (secondary coverage) does. Once approved for a Medicaid waiver, families will no longer be responsible for meeting a deductible, paying a copay or coinsurance for their children's medical services. As long as their children seek treatment from a medical provider that accepts both their primary and secondary coverage, the families pay 0 costs for their children's medical services as long as they are eligible for their Medicaid waivers. Before C.A.M.P was created, many families throughout Georgia sought the services of disability advocates that charged them to complete the Katie Beckett and NOW/COMP Medicaid waiver applications on behalf of their disabled child(ren). The average cost charged by these disability advocates is $1,200 per application. And, if one of these advocates has to travel to a family they charge them the cost of their travel, as well, including hotel and meals. This is another undue financial burden these families have to pay without the guarantee of their child's application being approved by the State of Georgia. At C.A.M.P, we focus our efforts to assist families for FREE in applying for Medicaid waivers. The application processes can be daunting and laborious, especially for parents whose children require 24-hour care, and need their undivided attention. C.A.M.P DOES NOT charge its families because we only seek to ensure that their disabled and medically fragile children have access to immediate, quality, affordable health care without unnecessarily charging their families thousands of dollars to do so. Another important reason why C.A.M.P does not charge families for its services is because most of its Board members either live with a disability themselves, or are the parents of Special Needs children, too.

Since its incorporation April 2018, C.A.M.P has experienced an increase in requests for its services from families visiting its website and Facebook page. The organization has also received several referrals from physicians, speech & occupational therapists, and most importantly, current and former families having benefited from C.A.M.P’s services. Unlike typical start up nonprofits, C.A.M.P has an established presence within the Special Needs community as its founder and Executive Director has 2 children on the Autism Spectrum, one of which a diagnosis was given over 10 years ago. In addition to the noted individuals above who seek C.A.M.P's services, it also have a variety of community partners such as school districts, Georgia's Babies Can't Wait program, faith-based organizations, small businesses and a variety of nonprofits throughout the State of Georgia whose missions seek to support and uplift families of disabled individuals. These relationships provide daily referrals to C.A.M.P's intake process so that service delivery can be provided expeditiously as many families face time constraints in applying for a Medicaid waiver due to medical procedures needing to be performed sooner than later for their children. C.A.M.P'S community partnerships and referral services are critical to its sustainability as they provide the organization access to more families to serve.

Before C.A.M.P became its own entity, its Founder and Executive Director was successfully providing free Medicaid waiver application assistance to families throughout Georgia. So she's very familiar with the application processes as both her own children are Medicaid waiver recipients, as well. As C.A.M.P is a small nonprofit based in Metropolitan Atlanta, we currently do not have a local office nor any affiliate offices throughout the state. Our community partners provide C.A.M.P one addition competitive edge over its competitors in that our organization seeks to serve families all over Georgia and have relationships in most of the state's counties. Most of our Cobb County families get the benefit of meeting with us in person as our Executive Director resides in Cobb. Other families living more outside of Metro Atlanta receive our assistance via phone and electronically. But, if we happen to physically be in a particular county at a community event, or the request of a community partner, we are granted all the access to our community partners' offices to serve their clients, and our new families. We've learned that community partners enjoy the benefit of offering C.A.M.P's free services to their clients as an additional resource for them to offer to their own clientele for something they don't personally provide, but can get those clients the assistance they need through C.A., M.P. Despite our small size, our tenacity to help those in need will not get in the way of our ability to successfully assist these families who, in some instances, are close to declaring bankruptcy due to an inability to pay their children's medical debt. By upholding our mission to offer free services to Special Needs families C.A.M.P will identify itself as THE go-to place Special Needs families throughout Georgia seek first when needing to secure additional access to health coverage for their disabled children through Medicaid waivers.

In a study conducted by the National Center for Health Statistics, a survey was conducted of the number of children in the U.S. diagnosed with the developmental disabilities Autism Spectrum Disorder, Intellectual Disability, Cerebral Palsy, Down Syndrome, Epilepsy, Blindness, Deafness, etc. The study concluded that between 2014-2016 there was a steady, consistent increase in the prevalence of developmental disabilities. In Georgia, between 1/1/2013-9/15/2018, the Department of Behavioral Health & Developmental Disabilities served 8,877 individuals receiving community support services under a variety of Medicaid waiver programs. As more children are diagnosed, the cost of raising them, and being able to obtain the necessary medical services they require, the annual costs of raising a disabled child will be as much as $60,000, and for a lifetime, as much as $2-$3 million. Between 2013 and 2017, when our Founder was providing free Medicaid waiver application services before C.A.M.P was incorporated, she helped 238 out of 300 Special Needs families successfully secure either Katie Beckett and/or NOW/COMP Medicaid waivers. That is an 80% success rate. After C.A.M.P was incorporated in 2018, its first year mission was to assist 100 families. C.A.M.P exceeded its first year goal. As long as the diagnoses of developmental disabilities continue to rise, and the need for financing the lifelong medical care for these individuals continues to increase, C.A.M.P will continue to serve Georgia's Special Needs families and push itself to increase its annual goals of assisting and securing the Medicaid waivers for disabled and medically fragile children. What the study conducted by the NCHS did not account for were other medical conditions suffered by children such as strokes and brain injury. According to the National Stoke Association and Brain Injury Association of America, about 8,00 children from birth to age 18 suffer a stroke each year, and roughly 62,000 children suffer brain injuries, resulting in hospitalizations. As hospitals are deemed an institutional level of care, and the effects of strokes and brain injury can result in long-term treatment, the families of these children, too, will benefit from C.A.M.P's free services to lower the financial burden of parents when navigating how to fund the cost of necessary and expensive medical care by securing a Medicaid waiver. As long as C.A.M.P's efforts to support these families continues to increase in its data, we will know that the progress we make is substantial and making the difference in the lives of many.

In C.A.M.P's first year as its own entity, we served 125 families in 2018. Of the 125 families who sought our services, 89 successfully secured a Medicaid waiver for their children. That is a 72% success rate. C.A.M.P not only seeks to improve the quality of life for disabled children and their families, we also seek to improve the communities they live and work in, too. By freeing up the amount of money parents no longer have to pay for their children's medical care, families have the ability to save & invest money, and contribute more financially to their local economies. In terms of dollars, if we were to put a price on the work C.A.M.P provides to its families, particularly the ones securing Medicaid waivers for their children, we could reasonably state that C.A.M.P saved families $106,800 by not having to having to pay a disability advocate that charges $1,200 per application. We could also attest that upon securing a Medicaid waiver, C.A.M.P will saved those same 89 families millions more in terms of not having to pay out of pocket costs for medical treatment for their disabled and medically fragile children. C.A.M.P's 2019 goal is to assist 200 families and increase its success rate by 80%. C.A.M.P also plans to implement a new scholarship program in 2019 that will provide financial assistance to Special Needs families in Cobb County to pay for medical evaluations and therapy sessions while waiting for approval for a Medicaid waiver, and ultimately throughout Georgia. C.A.M.P is working with its community partners to provide free, monthly workshops for our clients/families to provide additional educational, therapeutic and networking opportunities supporting the entire family so as to promote more positive experiences for all members of the disabled child's family.