Medical

The court may order one or both parents to provide health insurance coverage for the children. If the court orders a parent to obtain available health insurance coverage from an employer and the parent fails to do so, the FOC will send a medical support notice to the parent's employer. The employer then must enroll the employee's children in the employer's plan and deduct the premiums from the employee's wages.

Some health care expenses are not covered by typical health care plans. Therefore, the court's support order also will require each parent to pay a percentage of those "non-covered expenses." As of October 1, 2004, some support orders require that some of the non-covered health care expenses be included with the child support payment and paid in advance. These non-covered expenses are often referred to as "ordinary health care expenses." Ordinary health care expenses include things such as co-payments, deductibles and over-the-counter expenses. The FOC will help collect the other parent's share of those non-covered medical expenses if the following four conditions are satisfied:

• The amount exceeds the yearly annual ordinary amount in the order or the requesting parent is the support payer.
• One parent requested payment from the other parent within 28 days after receiving an insurer's determination that an expense was not covered.
• The other parent did not pay within 28 days after the request for payment was made.
• The FOC's assistance is requested within one year after incurring the expense, or within six months after the insurer has denied coverage, or within six months after the other parent failed to pay as required.

If you are having difficulty collecting re-imbursement for medical expenses - if included in your court order - and the above four conditions are met, complete a "Demand for Medical Payment (FOC 13)" form and return to the Friend of the Court office. Instructions for completing the form and the form are available by clicking the link below or found in the Forms section.