Visually Impaired School Health Program
Purchaser: Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired Program: Health Care and Therapy for Resident Students Description: The Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI) is a special public school established by the Texas Legislature to provide visually impaired students and often those with multiple disabilities age 6 to 21 with a solid education. The school operates a single campus in Travis County.
The school provides on-campus housing for full-term or summer school students, and a full-time, around-the-clock nursing staff provides student medical care. The school also provides occupational and physical therapists, social workers, counselors, speech therapists, psychologists, and diagnosticians.
Other medical care–physicians and physical exams, for instance–is by contract. The school pays up-front for student medical services and occupational and physical therapy services, then bills Medicaid for reimbursement.
The Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired spent $97,375 on health care services in fiscal 1998.
Texas Total, Fiscal 1998
Amount Spent: $97,375 $27,234 Health Care Services $70,141 Occupational/Physical Therapy Type of Funding: $97,375 Medicaid Reimbursement Number of Recipients: 294 students, including full-term, summer-term and short-term students.
Average Amount Spent: $331.20 per student
Sources: Legislative Budget Board and Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired