A child will require medical needs and health care costs in addition to the typical basic demands. After a divorce, who is responsible for paying for the child’s medical bills? In Michigan, the divorce decision serves as a roadmap for the parents regarding the costs of child support.
Click here to watch the video on Which Parent is Responsible For Child Health Expenses After Divorce in Michigan?
Your divorce decree should specify what occurs in this case, and it almost certainly includes keeping the child covered. Either both parents paying equally or paying in separate amounts could be used. The court will unquestionably ensure that the youngster is protected. Examine your divorce ruling; it should serve as your direction.
There are certain significant exceptions divorcing marriage partners may need to take into account. After a divorce, one ex-spouse is typically not compelled to cover the other’s medical expenditures. Following a divorce, a number of variables determine who is responsible for paying the child’s medical bills.
What You Need to Know About UCSO
When you start talking about child support you will probably hear about MCSF or the Michigan Child Support Formula.
The Friend of the Court Bureau created a formula guideline for calculating child support obligation amounts as part of its duties. The use of this formula by the courts when establishing or altering child support obligations is mandated by law.
The child support formula is periodically reviewed, adjusted, and its figures updated to account for shifts in the economy. A new Michigan Child Support Formula Manual is released by the bureau as soon as these changes go into effect. The manual and any relevant schedules or supplements make up the Michigan regulations.
The MCSF aids courts in determining the proper amount of child support due to be paid. The MCSF is based on the resources available to parents and the requirements of the children. The MCSF is based on a professional review of facts and figures regarding the expenses of parenting children at various income levels.
The MCSF takes into account the net incomes of both parents before comparing that income to various external factors. Additionally, the model accounts for unique situations like shared custody and the amount of nights that children spend with each parent.
Once a determination about child support becomes final, you will hear about another acronym, the UCSO.
The Uniform Child Support Order or UCSO, along with other orders, is entered at the conclusion of every child support case, child custody disagreement, and divorce involving children. The financial support of your child is entirely within the jurisdiction of this UCSO. It specifies who will pay what amount of child support to whom, when it will begin and stop, and who is in charge of keeping the child’s health, dental, and vision insurance current. The UCSO also specifies how payments for your child’s medical costs will be made.
Medical support comprises regular and supplemental medical costs, health insurance, and premium sharing. Regular medical costs include copays and deductibles for uninsured medical costs. Parental care costs like over-the-counter medications and first aid supplies are excluded from regular medical costs.
There’s a cap for the average cost of medical care for one child per year. Uninsured charges over and beyond the annual cap on typical medical expenses are referred to as additional medical expenses. The UCSO refers to these extra costs as uninsured health care charges. Typically, a percentage of increased medical costs is allocated to each parent based on their income.
When the parties have an established pattern for child care and can attest to their actual, predictable, and reasonable child care expenses, childcare reimbursement amounts are based on actual costs.
One of the parents will be required by the court to supply the child with health insurance. This private insurance may be supplied as a perk of employment, purchased, or obtained in another way (from a parent’s spouse or other household member). Or, in some circumstances, it might be public insurance like Medicaid or MIChild. To decide which parent should provide coverage, the court will take into account a number of variables from the Michigan Child Support Formula Manual or MCSF.
Which of the Parents Gets to Pay for Health Expenses?
Who is responsible for a child’s medical costs after a divorce? While you might not be liable for an ex-individual spouse’s medical obligations, if you have children, you will at least share some of the cost of their care until they are adults.
How do parents split or share that duty? The cost of a child’s health insurance, if paid by one parent, is taken into account while determining child support. If you sift through the slightly technical description of UCSO, you will come to understand both parents shoulder the cost for the children’s medical and health care.
Judges in Michigan and Friend of the Court investigators make the assumption that both parents will contribute to the costs of raising their children when determining child support. It is expected that the primary custodial parent will cover costs that immediately result. Based on the parties’ relative salaries, the number of nights the child spends with each parent, and a number of other considerations, the other parent (the payer) pays child support.
According to the conditions outlined in the UCSO, both parents must contribute to the child’s uninsured medical expenses.
What Is Covered Under the Child’s Medical and Health Expenses? How Is It Shared?
The calculations used to determine child support in each case include medical costs. On the first page of your UCSO, there is a table with a line for “usual medical.” This is the monthly amount that the payer must contribute toward each child’s out-of-pocket ordinary medical expenses (OMEs).
Every UCSO also specifies the yearly average medical cost. This is the annual contribution that the payee—the person who is receiving child support—is required to provide. The sum, however, can be different if you have an older child support order. Before receiving reimbursement for any special costs related to child support, the payee must have already paid this annual regular medical amount to physicians, hospitals, pharmacies, and other healthcare providers.
The UCSO also decides what happens if a child’s uninsured medical bills go above and beyond what is specified above. On your child support order, these sums will be divided according to the parties’ respective incomes and shown as percentages.
According to the Michigan Child Support Formula, the payee parent is eligible to receive reimbursement for extraordinary (extra-ordinary) medical costs like:
[ a ] Co-pays
[ b ] Deductibles
[ c ] Out-of-pocket expenses
[ d ] Doctors’ visits
[ e ] Hospital stays
[ f ] Medical equipment
[ g ] Medicines and pharmaceuticals
[ h ] Preventative care (including vaccines)
[ i ] Dental expenses (including braces)
[ j ] Vision or optical care (including glasses or contact lenses)
[ k ] Mental health or psychological care
The annual sum for typical medical expenses is not meant to pay for:
[ a ] First-aid supplies
[ b ] Over-the-counter medicine
[ c ] Painkillers
[ d ] Cough syrup
[ e ] Vitamins
[ f ] Hygiene supplies
Even if extra medical costs are covered by every UCSO, many custodial parents never get that money because they don’t adhere to the regulations for repayment of medical expenses.
What if One of the Parent Declines and Won’t Pay?
Even when the court-ordered child support is paid, a disagreement may still occur when a child has medical expenses that go above and beyond what is deemed “ordinary.” When a court is aware that a child may incur higher expenditures, it may boost the normal sum for uninsured medical bills.
When a child’s uninsured healthcare costs exceed the “ordinary” annual amount, the cost of those costs is split between the parents according to each parent’s portion of their combined total income. This usually is a case for ex spouses with children having special needs.
Unless the parents jointly agree to a different agreement, each parent is accountable for the percentage of any extraordinary medical costs incurred.
So what happens if one parent chooses not to contribute to a child’s high medical expenses? Although the legislation in Michigan involving a parent’s refusal to cover a child’s exorbitant medical costs is quite intricate, the following is necessary:
[ a ] Within four weeks after the date the insurance company paid on the cost or denied payment, the parent requesting compensation must send a reimbursement request to the other parent. Write down your request and save a copy for yourself.
[ b ] This means that one parent must cover the entire cost and then ask the other for reimbursement. The paying parent must send the bill to Michigan’s Friend of the Court agency within six months if the other parent doesn’t pay in order for that agency to enforce payment.
[ c ] Seek the counsel and direction of a family attorney who can ensure that you meet the deadlines and standards and that the court acts on your behalf if your spouse refuses to pay his or her share of your child’s extraordinary medical expenses.
A family law attorney will need to file a petition with the court on your behalf if the other parent of your child is refusing to pay court-ordered child support.
The parent’s salary or tax refunds may be garnished, a lien may be put on their home or other property, their license may be suspended, or they may even be charged with contempt of court.
If you want to know more about what child support covers, you can read our article, “What is Child Support Supposed to Cover in Michigan? Does it Include Tuition?” to see how much of educational expenses are actually covered.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel today for more advice on Family Law!
Goldman & Associates Law Firm is here to with information about Child Custody and Divorce in the State of Michigan.