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    Foster Parents Often Struggle To Find Doctors To Treat The Kids In Their Care

    Foster parents often struggle to meet their charges' extraordinary health needs. Some states are testing out a coordinated approach to care to keep these kids from slipping through the cracks.
    by Phil Galewitz Aug 22, 2018 4 minutes
    "We would not be able to foster without Medicaid," says Sherri Croom of Tallahassee, Fla. Croom and her husband, Thomas, have fostered 27 children in the past decade. They're pictured here with four adopted children, two 18-year-old former foster daughters and those daughters' sons.

    Sherri and Thomas Croom have been foster parents to 27 children — from newborns to teenagers — during the past decade.

    That has meant visits to dozens of doctors and dentists for issues ranging from a tonsillectomy to depression.

    While foster parenting has innumerable challenges, health care coverage for the children isn't one of them. Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor, picks up the tab for nearly all children in foster care and often continues to cover them if they are adopted, regardless of their parents' income. And as a result of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, foster kids who have Medicaid when they reach 18 can keep the coverage until they turn 26.

    "We would not be able to foster without

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