Today I wake up to complete chaos. This not how I want to start my day. Ever.
At 8:30 AM I received a call back from the ST clinic. I called them twice yesterday so we could get Austin back on their schedule twice a week. I was informed that they would no longer be seeing him as an Early Intervention client due to "conflict of interest." Wha?!?
And furthermore, perhaps I should seek out another vendor for services blahblahblah. The policy of their clinic is yaddayaddayadda but if I chose to accept what the insurance is offering they would be glad to see him. Huh?
Confused? Yeah me too.
So I promptly called our EI coordinator for clarification. There must be some confusion with all this, surely they (ST clinic) are wrong. Now I consider myself a pretty savvy person, educated and whatnot, but these people are talking in circles. So now I'm wondering if I had it all wrong. Crap.
Our EI coordinator calls me back fuming. She says that she has already contacted new vendors for us and hopefully we can make a swift switch. She says the impression she gets is that his current ST wants to drop Austin from their caseload. And get this...here is the reason.
It's a long story, but the short version is that his current (well, now former) ST doesn't think "that there is anything wrong with him" "he looks fine" "he's not that sick" were a few comments she made to our EI coordinator.
So they don't "buy" the whole he's medically fragile "story", after all in the past two months he hasn't been THAT sick. Well unless you count that day we spent in the ER for BLOOD in his tummy. But, yeah he's not THAT sick.
Translation: They do not want to provide him services in the home. Period.
HELLO, that's the whole point lady.
You see this is how it works: medically fragile child receives ALL therapy in the home and has limited contact with others. That is how we keep him from getting sick in the middle of winter!! He, basically, only sees his cousins, immediate family, nurses and therapists here at home.
I even called his Pediatrician to get a letter stating the above, just to be on the safe side. But really no one is requiring that "high risk" language except this particular ST. The point is moot now as we are moving on. Just not how I wanted to start my day.
The real kicker is the ST clinic name is My Dream. My Nightmare is more like it.
In other news, you can read the beginning of this lovely story over at 5MinutesForSpecialNeeds.com Starting today I will have a weekly article up every Thursday.
And if you are interested in how our Nintendo Wii Fit Plus experience is going, you can drop by WiiMommies.com for that update. (Last I checked there was a slight snafu with my article posted there but hopefully that will be corrected soon. I did not write it in duplicate.)
Thanks for peeking,
8 Peekers:
I love people who expect us to run our lives around them...even though, they are being PAID to help us. UGh. Hugs.
I am fortunate to have relatively healthy children although both have mild bizarre ailments (fever induced seizures in one that didn't follow the rules and a duplex kidney plus urinary reflux in the other). Like I said, both are mild things that are easily controlled by monitoring the kiddos. My point being that we have been very blessed to have a wonderful pediatrician and have only run into 2 emergency room doctors who didn't believe ol' mom... I mean, what do I know... I hope that your next experience is better. Sorry for the ramble!
Argh!
I will say....we have a similar story with an OT who didn't feel Alex needed therapy, because "he can get that from school" and "he doesn't need therapy" and (the kicker) "he's got a trach, so he'll catch up on his own when it's gone"
*fumes*
Anyway. While it's complicated, you're probably better off with a therapist who actually knows what she's doing :)
Janis,
Finally getting caught up on your blog. Hurray for the swallow study results! That is HUGE and I am so happy for you both! And as far as this, ahem, speech therapist goes, Good Riddance! Austin does NOT need someone like that, that's for sure! Shameful behavior is all I can say.
I'm crossing my fingers that someone great is coming your way!
Hugs,
Christy
OMG!! I am so sorry that the ST seems to be such a snobby ass that she is the one to determine what is medically fragile or not. Reminds of an OT through ECI here telling a friend of mine that her son with spina bifida didn't need physial therapy because he wasn't high tone, and soley based on her (the OT's opinion) they wouldn't even send a PT out for an evaluation! Of course this was the same OT that ECI sent out to work with my DD on her feeding thearpy, and only made things 10X worse then they were, and who was also working on DS with speech therapy (OT even said that she wasn't that well versed in speech!)
People better beware of a pissed off momma bear.
I'm sorry to hear this Janis. It doesn't seem right. I hope in the end he gets the services he needs without being a total headache!
Oh no Amiga.... That's horrible! I hope you are able to fix this soon!!!
{{abrazos}}
PS: I had an awesome time with you at latism last night... MuaH!!
Craziness! My blood pressure just shot up reading about your issues with said ST - wow.
Take a step back, deep breath, and know that for every "bad seed there will be MANY others who will be GREAT! Hang in there.
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