Well, I met the new Kaiser autism doctor today. She is really nice and seems really intelligent. But as soon as I told her I'd like regular speech therapy for Elliott since he's extremely behind, she shut down and said that Kaiser doesn't consider this a medical need so much as an educational need and that they'd only cover 2 sessions. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but autism is a neurological (THEREFORE MEDICAL) condition.
There is this wonderful woman who provides a step-by-step guide to getting services from Kaiser. It is possible but it's so frustrating that they make you jump through hoops and their default mode is to not help autistic kids. What about parents who can't fight or don't realize they can?
The doctor said something like, "I know this isn't ideal, but..." It just makes me even more irritated because I know that she knows this is wrong.
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4 comments:
That sucks!
Kaiser is really hard on their Docs, not letting them order tests and make referrals! Keep up the fight!
We got Jordy Speech therapy through the school system. Will they cover it?
It seems like everything is a battle. With autism being so prevalent you'd think that Kaiser would want to be on the cutting edge. I'm so sorry that you always have to fight so hard. But thank God you don't take "no," as the answer.
We see the same Dr. now and I like her much better then Dr. Curry. Good luck Angela with that. We got denied and IRC picked it back up again for a while, but they dropped her and told me the school district needs to pick it up. I know there is a way around it, but it is a real fight and costly which is why I haven't fought that battle. We just don't have the money. Another reason I do no biomedical. we can't afford it. What does the district say about speech? What happened to the Truesdal speech program he was in?
Hey Summer,
We love the Truesdail program, but I know he won't have speech in the summer, so I want to get the ball rolling now. I wanted to see what the new doctor said, and I guess I was just too hopeful that she'd be more reasonable. It's so messed up how they treat autism. I'm going to follow the grievance process and see what happens. I'd like to push this issue further and even get some publicity on this in the local newspapers. the school district's speech program is a joke and I do not like his teacher. She treats him differently than the other kids (she even has him sit in a chair during circle time while all the other kids sit on the floor, which I'm going to ask her to stop doing) and she seems to think some of his autism traits like limited eye contact are a discipline issue, which really annoys me. We are of course working to improve all of those things through ABA. I just want speech and social skills therapy without interruption because those are his top deficits. If I'm successful, I'll tell you everything I did. :)
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