Kids and Health Care: When Your Child Needs Special Care Conclusion

If you get the news that your child has an acute or chronic health problem, some sadness -- and even some anger -- is natural. But, once those emotions pass, you and your family will be left with the challenge to become the child's advocates.

If you're millionaires, this might mean hiring lots of nursing and caregivers to tend to the child. And insurance won't pay for that. Usually.

But you don't have to be millionaires to get good coverage. You just have to be willing to be aggressive -- to learn all you can about the disease or condition; to record every exam and treatment; to act as an official historian when necessary...even if that means educating some doctors and providers.

This much work...this much aggressiveness...may be tiring. But it's the surest way to make sure that a sick child gets the best and most timely medical care available. And, truth told, in the U.S. medical system even millionaires have to do the same thing.