Autism Pathways App Launches With 50-State Waiver Directory

Product Launches Into a Patchwork

HIGHLANDS RANCH, COLORADO — A solo founder will publicly release Autism Pathways, a free iOS and Android app, on June 1, 2026, with a stated goal of guiding autism families through Medicaid applications and Individualized Education Program (IEP) preparation, backed by a county-level directory of developmental disability agencies in all 50 states, according to a press release distributed May 5 via EIN Presswire.

Founder Jessie Fielding built the app over two years of nights and weekends, according to the release. The company is organized as Autism Pathways LLC. Beyond that paid distribution and the company’s own social handles, no independent reporting on Fielding or the venture had surfaced as of May 28.

The distribution was paid. EIN Presswire syndicated the announcement, and XPR Media placed it on the Des Moines Register’s press-release channel; the page carries a disclaimer that USA TODAY Network editorial staff were not involved.

The launch arrives at a moment when autism prevalence in the United States has reached 1 in 31 eight-year-olds, the highest figure in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring (ADDM) Network record. The April 2025 report covers 16 sites for surveillance year 2022. Geographic variation is wide: 1 in 19 children in California, 1 in 103 in Laredo, Texas.

“The waitlists for these waivers can be five, seven, even ten years long in some states. The date you apply is the date your clock starts. Families are losing years they will never get back simply because no one told them to get on the list.” — Jessie Fielding, Founder, Autism Pathways LLC (2026)

Where the Waiver Math Sits

Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) waivers underwrite respite, day programs, and most ancillary autism supports outside ABA itself. They are capped, waitlisted, and county-administered in many states.

KFF’s October 2024 update on HCBS waiting lists reported approximately 711,000 people nationally on Medicaid HCBS waiver waitlists, up from about 692,000 in 2023. People with intellectual or developmental disabilities, the population that encompasses most autism-specific waivers, made up roughly 73 percent of the total. Forty-one states had waitlists in the most recent cycle, according to McKnight’s Home Care coverage of the KFF report.

The average wait across all HCBS populations was about 40 months in 2024. For waivers serving people with autism specifically, KFF’s November 2025 update put the figure at 63 months, or roughly 5.25 years. The foundation cautions that the small subset of states reporting autism-only wait data shifts the year-over-year average, so the autism figure should be read as a cycle-specific estimate rather than a stable rate.

Texas runs the longest tail. The Arc of Texas documents interest-list lengths approaching 16 years for some state waiver programs.

Autism prevalence: 1 in 31. The HCBS waitlist: 711,000 people, 73 percent of them with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

What the App Says It Does

Per the May 5 release, the centerpiece feature is a searchable, county-level directory of developmental disability agencies in all 50 states, including waiver program names, eligibility rules, contact information, and application links. Adjacent features include step-by-step guidance for Medicaid applications and appeals, IEP preparation, developmental tracking, and what the company calls a potty-training pathway.

The core guidance and the full waiver directory are free, the company said. Premium add-ons, sold via in-app purchase, include an Appeal Tracker, a Waiver Checklist, Provider Prep reports, talking-point scripts for school and medical appointments, and re-evaluation reminders; the company has not disclosed their prices.

The announcement names no beta testers, no early-access cohort, no advocacy-organization endorsement, and no health-system pilot.

A note on sourcing: every feature description above traces to the May 5 press release and its syndicated placement. The app-store listings are not yet live, so neither the 50-state directory nor the workings of the paid tier can be independently checked before the June 1 launch.

Where Incumbents Already Sit

Free navigation tools for autism families are not new. Autism Speaks publishes an EPSDT Tool Kit aimed at the same Medicaid coverage question. Florida State University’s Autism Navigator and its companion My Autism Navigator app cover diagnostic and early-intervention pathways. State-level navigator nonprofits and the CDC’s “Learn the Signs. Act Early.” campaign occupy adjacent niches.

What Autism Pathways’ stated value proposition adds, per the founder, is the consolidation of all-50-state county-level waiver data with IEP, Medicaid appeals, and developmental tracking in a single consumer app. No incumbent free tool BNA reviewed combines all four. That claim can be checked once the app ships.

Open Questions for June 1

Several material facts remain unverified at publication. The company reports no funding, no employees beyond Fielding, and no co-founder. No Colorado Secretary of State filing for Autism Pathways LLC was confirmed in BNA’s research pass. The app’s June 1 public launch postdates this article.

The Colorado piece of the regulatory map is current. The state’s Children’s Extensive Support (CES) waiver, administered by the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing (HCPF), submitted its 2024 CES waiver renewal application to CMS in March 2024, with a requested effective date of July 1, 2024. CES is a Colorado HCBS waiver of the kind Autism Pathways is built to help families navigate.

IEP demand is the parallel pressure. The National Center for Education Statistics reported approximately 7.5 million students ages 3 to 21 served under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 2022-23, or 15 percent of public school enrollment. Autism now accounts for about 13 percent of school-age students with disabilities, the fastest-growing IDEA category in 2023-24, per Advocacy Institute analysis of federal Office of Special Education Programs data.

Three things should become clear after June 1: whether the app-store listings go live as scheduled, what the premium tier costs, and how deep the 50-state directory actually runs. Independent confirmation of the founder’s background and the company’s corporate filings remains outstanding.

AT A GLANCE

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