Accessing Medicaid's Child Mental Health Services: The Experience of Parents in Two States

This article describes four experiences that were common to a focus group of parents with children with emotional disturbances and also were receiving Medicaid: crisis-oriented systems in which identification and treatment of disorders were delayed, the scarcity of child psychiatrists, limited access to intensive services, and a "cookie-cutter" approach to services. Focus group participants reported that serious disorders were not accurately diagnosed until years after parents suspected their child had a disorder and that too few services