Local pediatrician aims to help families after thousands of kids were dropped from Medicaid

Since 2023, tens of thousands of children are being booted from Medicaid in South Florida.

It is an unwinding that’s happened across the state and may be keeping some families from being able to go to the doctor.

For Jasmine Humes, it wasn’t until she arrived with her 6-year-old daughter to the pediatrician’s office that she realized her daughter had been kicked off Medicaid.

“I had a visit, I wasn't aware they had dropped my daughter at that time,” Humes told NBC6.

In an effort to help alleviate the burden on families one Fort Lauderdale pediatrician is doing his part.

“The ripple effects really started a little bit after March where we did start to see a lot of the families who were covered and able to come to our clinic and be seen, now, they did not have insurance anymore,” said Dr. Karl Yousef at Total Pediatric Care.

During the pandemic, Medicaid programs were required to keep families enrolled in exchange for enhanced federal funding.

The program ended and last March, Florida Department of Children and Families began reviewing more than 4.9 million Floridians enrolled in the program and began to disenroll people who no longer qualified because of income changes.

For Humes, a second job as a part-time at a retail store, put her over the income threshold.

“I didn’t expect to have to pay out of pocket that day,” said Humes.

Yousef told NBC6 he has seen about a 25% drop in patients as a result of the unwinding.

According to the Florida Policy Institute, a group who tracks it, more than 53,000 children in Broward County were dropped from Medicaid from last April to January 2024. More than 75,000 in Miami-Dade.

Yousef started several initiatives in his office. They’ve hired Medicaid enrollment specialists to assist families, and began two programs -- one that offers free visits and the One-Dollar-A-Day Program.

“What we did instead, is create almost a low-cost membership-style for families where it’s all wrapped up in one cost. It’s a dollar a day program,” said Yousef. “We can listen to people’s hearts, lungs and make sure they’re okay, make sure they’re healthy, but we always have to think what are the barriers for a family to come in."

As they say, an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but in Humes' case, a dollar a day keeps the bills at bay.

“It’s really like, miss a meal or take them to the doctor, or miss a bill or take them to the doctor,” said Humes.

Health care advocates have been pushing the state to pause removing people from Medicaid.

Florida has currently more than 5 million Medicaid recipients.