Just when Alexis Smith thought it couldn’t get any worse, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
The 30-year-old mom of four had been recently widowed and lost her job of five years after missing work to care for her dying husband.
Her grief, though, was soon replaced by the more imminent stress of a long and arduous Medicaid application process that left her wondering how she would pay for the hysterectomy and chemotherapy she needed.
“Every time I was calling to check the status, no one could tell me anything,” she said.
At first, agency officials told her over the phone it would take 90 days to approve her application. Then, that became 120 days, Smith said. Her worries grew.
“I was getting worried, stressed out, I already had depression and anxiety,” she said. “In my head I’m like, ‘I’m sick, I can barely get up to cook for my children, I need to have this surgery, I have no money, and they won’t even approve my Medicaid?’ Medicaid was really my only hope.”
Smith’s first application, filed on Aug. 7, was approved 93 days later on Nov. 8., the day before her surgery – only after Mississippi Today reached out to the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program and its consumer advocates got involved.