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Texas Care Map
Who qualifies for what in Texas, where to be seen when you qualify for nothing, and what to do about the bill.
Coverage, clinics, and medical bills, worked out for Texas.

About Texas Care Map

The bill was $14,300 and change, for one night, one scan, and one gallbladder. I found out that the hospital ran a charity care program six weeks after the window I should have applied in. Nobody had mentioned it: not at admission, not at discharge, not on the statement. It was on a page of the hospital’s website that I would have had to already know existed in order to look for.

That six weeks is what this site is for. Not the bill, the six weeks. In Texas the information that would have changed the outcome existed the whole time, in public, written for people who already understood the system.

Why Texas specifically

I am Delia Fuentes. I cleaned houses in San Antonio for fifteen years, self employed, so no employer plan. By the time my children were grown there was no dependent child in the household, and in Texas that closes the last adult Medicaid door there is. My income was low, which turned out to be a problem in the direction nobody warns you about: too low to reach the bottom of the Marketplace subsidy range. Four years uninsured, not through any decision I made.

That is not an unusual story here. It is closer to the standard one, which is why the standard national advice does not work in this state. “Apply for Medicaid” is the first thing every article tells an uninsured adult, and for most uninsured adults in Texas it is simply wrong. The useful information is the second and third answers, and almost nobody publishes those.

Three people, three jobs

This site splits the writing by who has standing to say a thing, which is unusual enough to explain.

  • Priscilla Alaniz, MPH, CHW writes the coverage, program, and billing pages. She is a Certified Application Counselor under the federal Marketplace program and a Texas certified Community Health Worker, which means she is trained and registered to explain eligibility rules and help people complete applications. Neither I nor a physician has that standing.
  • Dr. Warren Ashby, MD, FAAFP clears every article. He is a family physician at a federally qualified health center, so the safety net is his patient panel rather than his reading. He answers whether something is medically urgent. He deliberately does not answer eligibility questions.
  • I write the rest: what it is like at the window, what people are actually told, and where the process quietly loses you.

What this site refuses to do

Some of these will read as unhelpful. They are the reason the rest can be trusted.

  • It will not tell you whether you qualify for anything. Only the Texas Health and Human Services Commission can determine a Medicaid, CHIP, or Healthy Texas Women case, and only the Marketplace can determine a premium tax credit. Anything else is a guess dressed up as an answer.
  • It will not recommend a specific clinic, hospital, insurer, or plan, and it does not take money from any of them.
  • It will not publish an undated figure. Every dollar amount and income limit here carries the date it was checked and the source it came from, because Texas program rules move and a confidently stale number costs people coverage they would have got.
  • It is not a procedure guide. This site covers paying for and getting to care. What happens during an operation is your surgeon’s subject, not ours.

Not a government site

Texas Care Map is independent. It is not operated by, affiliated with, endorsed by, or funded by the State of Texas, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, the Texas Department of Insurance, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or any other government body. A .org named after a state abbreviation invites the assumption, so it is worth saying plainly: you cannot apply for anything here. Applications go through YourTexasBenefits or HealthCare.gov.

We are also not a HIPAA covered entity, and the site is not a Certified Application Counselor organization in its own right. Anything you send us is an ordinary email with ordinary email protections, which is to say very few. See Privacy before you send anything.

Where to start

If you do not know which of your problems you have, start with health coverage in Texas and follow it down. If you have already been denied, the Texas coverage gap explains why and getting care without insurance in Texas is the next page. If a bill has already arrived, medical bills in Texas sets out the order to do things in.

Corrections and questions are welcome through Contact. Read the Medical Disclaimer first: this is general information, not an eligibility determination and not medical advice.