Friday, October 9, 2020

Ughhhh...

 It's hard enough being a parent. It's extra hard to be a parent of a child with special needs. Do you know how much I hate calling to schedule therapy appointments through the scheduling system? I hate calling insurance more, no doubt about that, but my 25-minute call to schedule therapy had me just about in tears.

Mind you, we waited probably close to 6 weeks for the insurance companies to once again deem that Teddy needs therapy. I guarantee you that 6 minutes of observation would demonstrate that need, but let's wait 6 weeks without him getting necessary services. Then, both his OT and speech approvals came through within a week of each other, so I could schedule all his appointments with a single call.

I started with PT to add whatever appointments I could since you can schedule 2 to 3 months out and things fill up fast, and then the same person could help me with OT. Except, she really couldn't help much. She offered me an appointment next week, which was great, but the next available appointment after that was December.

Yes, December. The authorization we just waited 6 weeks to get approves Teddy for 18 visits prior to December 31. Yet, the next available appointment except for one lucky cancellation is the month his authorization expires. So, I asked about other therapists, even though Teddy has seen Ms. Kathleen for 6 years. The response was, well who else can he see? I said I'd assume he could see any available OT, and she corrected me and told me that wasn't possible as they had different specialties. Guess what? It's a moot point since both of them are booked until December as well. So, I took what I could get, sent a message to his therapist to see if she could find any available times in October or November that aren't on her schedule and then got to hold to transfer to the person who schedules for speech.

Fortunately, scheduling for speech was simpler, with much more availability. That still doesn't change the fact that I hate calling central scheduling. 

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