New York State offers a health insurance plan for children called Child Health Plus. This program depends on the family income to decide whether the children may be qualified to join either Child Health Plus or Children's Medicaid. These programs are available through dozens of health insurance provides through New York States.

In order to qualify for this program all children must be under the age of nineteen and must be residents of New York State. The children's qualification into either Child Health Plus or Children's Medicaid depends on the family's gross income. Often children who do not qualify for Children's Medicaid can enrol in the Child Health Plus program, if they do not already have health insurance with anyone else, and are not eligible for health insurance coverage or been under the employer-based health insurance policy within the past six month period. This may make them subject to a waiting period before they can qualify for Child Health Plus. In order to determine if a child is subject to a specified waiting period will depend solely on the household income and the reason your children lost employer-based health insurance coverage.

To check out the current family income based qualifications for children, please visit: http://www.nyhealth.gov/nysdoh/chplus/who_is_eligible.htm

Under the Child Health Plus program, children are eligible to receive well-child care, immunizations, physical examinations, diagnosis for illness, treatment for illness and injury, lab tests, x-rays, outpatient surgery, prescription and non-prescription drugs when ordered, emergency care, inpatient hospital medical and surgical care, short term therapeutic outpatient services, chemotherapy, hemodialysis, alcoholism and substance abuse - limited in and outpatient services, dental care, vision care, speech, hearing, medical equipment, emergency ambulance transportation to hospital, and hospice care.

When you children are enrolled in Child Health Plus a list of qualified providers will be given to you. These providers are services that are located near you. The provider could be a single doctor, several doctors, a group practice, and you will be asked to chose a doctor or community health care near you. If it is a group practice, you will be asked to specify which doctor you would like for your children. Whichever is used, you are guaranteed to be getting the personal health care services your child deserves.

If your child is in Medicaid, you will be required to enroll as part of a managed health care plan, or you can bring your child to any providers who accepts Children's Medicaid.