About us
Why we started
An awareness, family-story, resource and policy-advocacy platform working to improve medical and dental care access for autistic and disabled patients.
This movement began after seeing how difficult it can be for families to locate medical and dental professionals who are prepared to care for patients with special needs, specifically profound autism. What should be a basic healthcare appointment can become a months-long search involving repeated calls, insurance confusion, referrals, travel, and rejection.
We created this platform to make those experiences visible, connect families with existing resources, and build support for practical policy changes. Our goal is not to blame individual providers or policymakers. It is to address patient concerns and provider concerns in regard to reimbursement, provider education, staffing, equipment, and other system-level barriers, and to bring them directly to policymakers who can change them.
About the organization
Support Special Needs was founded by Dr. Poonam Gat, Owner and General Dentist of Children's Dental Care. Through years of caring for children with autism and other special needs, she recognized the need for greater access to quality healthcare and created this initiative to advocate for meaningful change.
Evannie Tejada serves as an Advocacy Intern for the initiative, supporting community outreach, raising awareness, connecting families with resources, and helping amplify the voices of individuals with special needs and their caregivers.
Meet the founders of Support Special Needs
Poonam Gat
Founder of Support Special Needs
Dr. Poonam Gat, D.D.S., B.D.S.
Division Director, Operating Room Dentistry at Newark Beth Israel Hospital NJ & NYU Graduate
Poonam Gat is a founder of Support Special Needs, an awareness initiative focused on improving access to medical and dental care for individuals with autism and other special needs.
Poonam Gat, Founder of Support Special Needs
Evannie Tejada
Advocacy Intern, Support Special Needs
University of South Florida Undergraduate Student, Health Sciences
Evannie Tejada is a founder of Support Special Needs, an awareness initiative focused on improving access to medical and dental care for individuals with autism and other special needs.
Evannie Tejada, Founder of Support Special Needs
What we do
Four areas of work
Raise awareness
Explain, in plain language, why routine medical and dental care is often inaccessible for autistic and disabled patients.
Collect family experience
Give families a structured, consent-driven way to document what happened when they searched for care.
Connect people to resources
Maintain a reviewed directory of medical, dental, state, insurance, and family-support organizations.
Advocate for change
Turn repeated individual barriers into de-identified evidence that policymakers and health plans can act on.
Boundaries
What this platform is not
Being clear about our limits protects the families who use this site.
- We are not a medical or dental practice and we do not provide medical advice.
- We do not schedule appointments or make referrals.
- We do not provide legal advice or insurance determinations.
- We are not an emergency service.
- We are not affiliated with Medicaid or any government agency.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Care should be accessible before a condition becomes an emergency.
Share an experience, locate a resource, or help bring these barriers to the attention of the people who can change them.