09/02/2026
The Arc of Howard County was featured in Maryland Matters this week, and we want to share why it matters.
For more than two years, people we support have been losing their Medicaid coverage because of errors and delays at the state level. Not because their needs changed, but because of backlogs and a system struggling to keep up.
The impact is real. Since 2023, about 42 people we support have lost coverage at some point, and we believe we are owed nearly $400,000 in unpaid claims for care we have already provided. In one case, a man was wrongly dropped from his waiver and went nearly a year without coverage. We never considered walking away from him. We kept providing his care, and we are now looking at $130,000 to $140,000 we may have to absorb.
As our Executive Director, Katie Collins-Ihrke, said in the article, the state is shifting its costs onto providers, on top of budget cuts. And we are not alone. Providers across Maryland are owed millions for care they had no choice but to deliver.
We will always show up for the people we serve. But the state needs to fix this, so that people with developmental disabilities and the providers who care for them can count on a system that works.
Please share this post to help more people understand what families and providers across Maryland are facing.
After more than two years of erroneous Medicaid disenrollments, communication challenges and slow responses from state agencies, the nonprofits and companies providing developmental disability services say they are near a financial breaking point.
