Farm Therapy

We spent Mother's Day weekend at my parents' farm, and both boys thoroughly enjoyed their weekends. They spent the majority of their time "helping" my dad and uncle. They rode on the 4-wheeler, in the golf cart with my 94-year-old grandpa and in the tractors. They were covered in dirt from head to toe, and Teddy licked the windows of  the tractors clean ... ish.

This window is delicious!

Since Teddy's favorite place to be is outside or in a cool vehicle, he couldn't have been happier bouncing from one fun farm toy to the next. He actually rode in a tractor for nearly a 2-hour stretch, which is rather remarkable for his attention span (and the sanity of my uncle if we're being honest).

When we first arrived at the farm, Teddy made a beeline straight for the first tractor he saw. He circled it and couldn't seem to figure out why no one was there to give him a ride. He got his rides soon enough and apparently decided he was capable of climbing all the way up the ladder to the tractor. When you look at the pictures, you can appreciate the muscle coordination, planning and strength that went into that feet for this little daredevil.

At least the ground was soft.

But he made it. And he's rather proud of himself. And I'm proud of him.

Teddy's making progress in scooting along in toys and is experimenting with pedaling. He understands the concepts and is starting to get a few rotations in with the pedals. He had fun playing on a tractor more his size when he couldn't convince the adults to give him rides.

Little farm boy.

If you've never walked across a farm field, you might not appreciate that it's not the easiest walking because the ground is uneven and quite soft. That didn't stop Teddy from walking darn near everywhere in the field when the tractor was stopped to reload seed to plant.

After all that hard work, Teddy found a new way to ride in style. His favorite thing about my grandpa used to be his cane. Recently my grandpa switched to using a walker more of the time to help him get around easier, and Teddy thinks that's even better than the cane as a toy. (But he still was happy to have the cane to use as a weapon while riding!)

This is one of my favorite pictures! They're both so happy.

Denied

December was the last time Teddy had outpatient physical therapy approved by Medicaid, which is his secondary insurance coverage. January is when the denial for PT arrived, after a few weeks of processing. The first week in March is when the hearing happened, via telephone of course to prevent me from dramatically marching Teddy into the hearing to show everyone why it's obvious he needs both outpatient PT and PT in the school setting.

I do realize, of course, that my dramatic entrance entrance would have been followed by me spending the entire hearing wrestling Teddy, which wouldn't have been overly effective. Not that it matters because last week in mid-April is when the hearing decision upholding the denial arrived in our mailbox.

It took 4 months to go through the process to get told there's no way Medicaid will cover PT for Teddy through outpatient clinic while he's receiving it in the school setting ... but we could file a request for services now to see if Medicaid will cover PT during the summer since Teddy doesn't qualify for summer services through the school. (That's a whole other bucket o' slimy worms that I'm not going to dig into right now.)

Let me do the math. Mid-April plus 4 months equals mid-August. That's right when Teddy's about to go back to school where he'll be getting PT services again. And that means, they wouldn't cover services because it would be duplicate services.

What are the odds that Medicaid grants the request right away for summer? How much will my PT hate me if I make her go through all the paperwork and process all over again? Why do we have to wait so long to get an answer on therapy ... and why do we have to request services every 3 months or so? How on earth does OT get approved right away for Teddy (not that I'm complaining!)?

So for now, we say to heck with Medicaid. We're trying to work with our clinic to run his therapy services for PT through only our primary insurance, which theoretically will work to get Teddy the therapy that benefits him.

And we're hoping it works for speech, too, because we just received that denial. I'm not sure I have the wherewithal to go through that appeal process, only to have it denied with the exact same language as the PT hearing decision I have in my hands.