Deprivation 510-05-35-10

(Revised 01/03 ML #2833)

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1. A child is considered deprived of a natural or adoptive parent’s support or care due to continued absence of a parent or inability of a parent to meet the child’s needs. A child may be considered deprived for the following reasons:

• Death of a parent;
• Divorce or legal annulment;
• Separation, legal or mutual, as long as there was no collusion between the parents to render the family eligible;
• Imprisonment of one or both parents. To establish continued absence, the parent must be sentenced to a minimum of a thirty-day jail term. Any portion of a sentence actually suspended and not served does not count toward the thirty-day minimum.  A parent who is permitted to live at home while serving a court-imposed sentence by performing unpaid public work or unpaid community service during the work day is not considered absent from the home;
• Unmarried parenthood (when not residing together);
• Abandonment;
• A parent is age sixty-five or older;
• Disability of a parent;
• Incapacity of a parent; or
• Unemployment, or underemployment, of a parent. (Applies to Family Coverage only.)

2. A parent’s contact with his or her child(ren) does not have to stop in order for continued absence to exist. A continuing relationship between an absent parent and child(ren), by itself, cannot be a basis for finding that continued absence does not exist. The continued absence of either parent from the home is established when a parent maintains and resides in a separate verified residence apart from the Medicaid unit for reasons other than employment, education, training, medical care, or uniformed service. The parent is considered absent from the home and the absent parent’s functioning as a provider of maintenance, physical care, or guidance to the child(ren) is considered interrupted. (‘Uniformed service’ is defined to mean duty in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Environmental Sciences Services Administration, Public Health Service, and reserve duty.).

A parent temporarily living apart from the child(ren) due to employment, education, training, medical care, uniformed service, or any other temporary reason is not considered "Absent from the home" as long as the parent continues to function as a parent, even if the level of support or care is somewhat deficient. An exception is made when there is evidence that continued absence would have existed irrespective of the above reasons.

3. Divorce courts often award custody of children to both parents, however, legal custody orders have no bearing on whether or not a child is considered "deprived." It is the parent’s absence from the home and the child’s physical presence rather than legal custody that is relevant.

4. A family may also establish deprivation, for the Family Coverage group, if the caretaker who is the primary wage earner is:

• Employed less than one hundred hours per month (based on pay stub hours, including holiday and sick pay hours); or
• Employed more than one hundred hours in the current month, but employed less than one hundred hours in the previous month and is expected to be employed less than one hundred hours in the following month.

5. The primary wage earner is the caretaker with the greater current income unless the family or agency establishes that the other caretaker had the greater total earnings in the twenty-four month period ending immediately before the month the family became eligible for the Family Coverage group. A primary wage earner, once established, remains the primary wage earner as long as the family remains eligible for the Family Coverage group.