CHARLESTON -- West Virginia children afflicted with the neurological disorder known as autism can expect expanded medical coverage in a House bill approved Thursday.
With one dissenting vote, delegates sent to the Senate a measure that broadens coverage so that private carriers, Public Employees Insurance Agency and the Children's Health Insurance Program are pulled into the mix.
Applied behavior analysis, or ABA, the one-on-one, all-day tutoring in which such children are taught social skills, may be done by a board-certified analyst, or tutor under an analyst's supervision, explained Finance Chairman Harry Keith White, D-Mingo.
From the time a child is diagnosed as autistic, he said, the bill provides three years of coverage with an annual $30,000 ceiling.
The monthly limit is doubled to $2,000, once the first three years are exhausted, until the child reaches 18, White said.
White said the bill also mandates an annual report to the Joint Committee on Government and Finance by PEIA, CHIP and private insurers.
The lone negative vote came from Delegate Ron Walters, R-Kanawha.
Delegates Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, and Mary Poling, D-Barbour, expressed gratitude to committees that worked the bill and sent it to the floor.
A fiscal note attached to the bill says 483 children would be covered via PEIA and another 312 through CHIP.
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