OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Last year, the Oklahoma State Legislature awarded a $9.3 million contract over five years to a company to do a full assessment of the Medicaid waiver waiting list.

The waiting list has been in the news this year because it has grown incredibly long.

An individual applying for one of several available Medicaid waivers will wait 13 long years for services.

The waiting list is maintained and managed by the Department of Human Services.

DHS recently unveiled a plan to serve everyone waiting.

“It’s heartbreaking when you have a child with such complex needs and you have no way of getting the support that you need to to care for them at home,” said Disability Law Center’s RoseAnn Duplan.

This time of year, graduation season, is so exciting for many Oklahoma families.

But for families of children with profound disabilities, graduation season often means the end of daytime help for their teen child.

For working parents of children with intellectual disabilities, graduation season can be crushing.

Parents in many of these families will have to quit their job to take care of their adult child who can no longer stay in public school.

“We love her. We say we’re going to take care of her until we really can’t, but we would really like a little help from the State of Oklahoma,” said Barbie Garrison, who cares for her adult daughter, Sarah. “We would love for them to get on board and realize that this is an unmet need that is affecting a lot of people. Some people are more vocal about it. Other people just suffer in silence because they are just beat down.”

Tuesday night at 10 p.m., KFOR’s Ali Meyer sits down with DHS to talk to the leader who left the agency and came back to fix the waiting list.

“This is my passion. I came back to DHS to eliminate this waiting list,” said Samantha Galloway. “I have spent my career working on this issue, and I have never felt more support to eliminate this waiting list than I do right now.”