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Wordnerdinthecity t1_iwezis9 wrote

From my experiences:

  1. CCBH will be your mental health service provider. They can sometimes have longer waitlists, but if you call them and tell them you need to see someone soon, and are flexible about time and distance, you can almost always find SOMEONE.
  2. If you work, and take ANY medications at all, mark the box on the medicaid form that says you have a disability. You can get MAWD and it's sliding scale medicaid up to ~80k a year, with minimal premiums (A friend of mine makes ~50k/yr and pays ~$20/m, zero copays). You may need a GP to fill out a form saying you take "health or life sustaining medications or has other medical needs that require ongoing care".
  3. Specialists will have waitlists, but the same is true if you have commercial insurance, and IME my wait times have been the same or shorter with medicaid than my SO who has top tier commercial insurance through his dad's employer.
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Riverrun221 OP t1_iwflrec wrote

I take a lot of medications for bipolar 1 and hypothyroid. Someone else said that I should mark No on the disability box because they can deny me for that reason? Or were they wrong and I should mark it because it will help my case? I don’t know what to do .also how would I get a GP to fill out the form if I have no insurance ?

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Wordnerdinthecity t1_iwhm7rz wrote

I was approved for regular medicaid within 30 days (I want to say it was like, 2 weeks, but that was prepandemic) because I'd quit my previous dayjob and I was going self employed. My income from the self employment the previous year had only been ~7k because it was alongside my dayjob, and so limited what time and energy I could devote to it. Since I left the dayjob, they didn't count what I made there towards my income anymore. And then I was able to get the form by calling the medicaid customer service line, had my GP do it, and sent that in.

I'd highly recommend if you aren't sure, try calling the PA benefits center once you've moved. They can do the application for you/check if there's other benefits you can be eligible for while you're at it.

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