Iowa program
Help connecting your child’s care (Child Health Specialty Clinics)
Iowa’s Child Health Specialty Clinics help families connect care and support for children with special health needs.
What it is
Iowa’s Child Health Specialty Clinics help families connect care and support for children with special health needs.
A navigator can help sort out which Iowa service handles a family’s next question. The clinics also arrange the Health and Disability waiver assessment for children under 21. The help your child can receive depends on the clinic’s review.
Eligibility rules
- The clinics serve Iowa children with special health-care needs, including a child with cancer, and they run the under-21 assessment for the Health and Disability waiver. Care coordination and family support have no charge; the clinic confirms any fee for clinical visits.
What you get
- Care coordination and health assessments.
- Parent-to-parent support and help connecting services.
- The under-21 Health and Disability waiver assessment.
What the help includes
- The regional clinics offer gap-filling clinical care as well as coordination.
- Services include care coordination, family support, selected assessments and clinical care that fills gaps. Help finding financial assistance is not a promise to pay treatment bills or travel. The clinic confirms visit charges, insurance billing and any separate assistance fund before you incur costs.
If you decide to apply
- Ask the family navigator line at 866-219-9119 or the clinics at 563-344-2250 about your child’s needs.
- Have the diagnosis letter and a short list of what you need help arranging.
Child Health Specialty Clinics: 866-219-9119 · Official page ↗
After you ask
- A coordinator or navigator can help identify who handles the services your child needs.
- You or the care team can discuss a referral at 563-344-2250, or family support at 866-219-9119. The clinic confirms the right service, whether a medical referral is needed, required records and current appointment availability.
Good to know
A navigator conversation can clarify the next service to approach. It does not itself approve Medicaid or a waiver place.
Other details
- The waiver’s separate care-needs and waiting-list rules still apply after a clinic assessment.
Official sources
“Could a family navigator help us connect our child’s care, coverage and home support? What help and costs would apply, and could you help us arrange a conversation if it fits?”
Why I’m asking: I want someone familiar with Iowa’s services to help us work out who handles each need.
More background and detailed requirements
Additional program information and published rules
Who does what
The three parts, side by side. The agency decides; nobody on this page does.
You
Call and describe what is unsorted: coverage, home care, school, or the waiver assessment.
Your social worker
The hospital social worker can make the referral with you.
The care team
Records and letters when the application asks for them.
- Who decides
- Child Health Specialty Clinics decides what it can offer.
- Ask the agency
- “My child has leukemia. Can a family navigator help us, and can you start the under-21 assessment for the Health and Disability waiver?”
How to apply
First step: Call the family navigator line on 866-219-9119, or the clinics on 563-344-2250.
- Call the family navigator line and say what you are trying to sort out.
- If you are asking about the waiver for a child under 21, ask them to start the assessment.
Official application / program page ↗
Where it starts: Call the family navigator line, or the clinics' request line.
What to gather
- The diagnosis letter
- What you are trying to sort out
How long: Unknown: no waiting times were published.
What a yes looks like
A named navigator or coordinator and a plan of who does what.
What a no looks like, and the next move
If they cannot help, ask them who in Iowa does, and ask the hospital social worker the same question.
Watch out
- Nothing found says this pays for treatment, travel or uncovered bills.
- Whether cancer is on any published list, and what income rules apply, were not established. Ring and ask rather than assuming either way.
The numbers and the rules
The arcane layer, kept on purpose. Checked September 11, 2026.
What it is worth
Care coordination, health assessments and a family navigator line; the under-21 waiver assessment runs through here.
Covers: Care coordination through regional centres · Health assessments · Gap-filling clinical care · Parent-to-parent support · The under-21 Health and Disability waiver assessment
What it costs the family: Unknown: no 2026 income or cost-sharing schedule was published.
The eligibility facts, as published
- Age
- children with special health needs; the under-21 waiver assessment route is named
- Diagnosis
- no published diagnosis list naming leukemia or cancer was found
- Income
- no 2026 income or cost-sharing schedule was found
- Insurance
- no explicit rule for privately insured or Medicaid children was found
The trap: This is not a fund. Nothing found says it pays a child's chemotherapy, travel or uncovered bills, so do not count on it for money.
Where I read this
- University of Iowa Health Care, Child Health Specialty Clinics — University of Iowa Health Care, read September 10, 2026
- University of Iowa Health Care, Health and Disability Waiver — University of Iowa Health Care, read September 10, 2026