7 Years Ago…Our Lives Changed Forever
Seven years ago at this moment, I was sitting in a hospital bed awaiting the birth of our first child. At the time, we did not know if our first child would be a boy or a girl. We were overwhelmed with the wonders of who our child would look like, what to name said child, and PAIN. Well, I was only feeling some of the pain thanks to an epidural but I felt pain none the less.
Now, I feel it necessary to write about Litttle T’s story so our newest readers have a chance to understand a little bit about him. He’s had a few bumps in his life to date so we’ll start at the beginning…
My pregnancy with Little T was fairly uneventful with the only real problem was when ever I ate anything that had cilantro as an ingredient. Cilantro gave my horrible heartburn which was a huge deal for our Mexican food loving family. His birth, on the other hand, was much more eventful. Prior to delivery, he breathed in meconium and was not breathing upon delivery. He recovered fast but none of this prepared us for what we’d face over the next few years.
He hit all of his milestones on or before the “expected” date. Well, all except talking. He walked early. He danced early. He ate early. He grew fast. He counted early. He could add and subtract up to 5 early. But he didn’t talk like others his age and we knew something was wrong. We got the normal ‘He’ll catch up’ or ‘Einstein didn’t talk until he was 3′ or ‘It runs in the family so don’t worry’ but that didn’t stop us from worrying. By the age of 2, our pediatrician was in agreement that something was going on so we began a myriad of testing. We did a standard hearing test. Inconclusive because he was unable to vocalize his answers. We did a sedated hearing test. Perfect score, the little bugger hears better than the average child his age. The technician just kept going to see how well he could hear. She gave up long before he stopped hearing. We saw our fair share of doctors who tested him for autism, aspergers, other spectrum disorders, ADHD, ADD, and many other neurological and speech disorders.
After all of this we were told, “He has Apraxia.” And off Tim and I went in search of an answer. What is Apraxia? Does he need speech therapy? Will we ever understand him? What can we do to help him now? And every other question a parent has when faced with the unknown.
Little T at age 3
Little T’s Device
We’ve made some progress on the order of Little T’s AAC device. Prentke Romich has a wonderful funding department to help parents and providers get the devices children need. They have struggled through the insurance out of network system throughout the last few months along with us.
It appears, as of yesterday, the company now has the approval in writing. They must sign the contract and fax it back to AmeriChoice for the final step before finalizing our order. If all goes well, we should have the device in our hands before the end of the month. We could not be more excited about the new adventures coming our way.
Three Months And Nothing
I am beginning to wonder if we’ll get Little T’s AAC device. After settling into our new homeschool adventure we began researching options for an AAC device. We spent loads of time calling places, requesting referrals, and crossing our fingers. In late July, we finally find someone who could do the evaluation we needed and thankfully at no cost to us. After spending months getting all the paper work, referrals, reports and what not together, we faxed over an order for the device in late October in hopes of getting the device before the end of the year.
Within a few weeks, I was informed that the company had contacted the insurance company for a pre-approval. After a month, I began to wonder why we hadn’t heard anything so I began calling and logging the conversations I had with each company. Over three months past the initial request and we are no closer to having the device in our hands.
Personally, I think three months is ridiculous to get an approval in writing. Yes, we have an approval but we cannot get that approval in writing. We have talked to more than a dozen employees and every time we appear to get close, the person assisting us is no longer available either due to job transfer or elimination. Now, I wonder if we’ll ever get the device.
Still Waiting…
Well, we’re still waiting on Little T’s device. We have slowly progressed from where we started but it has been extremely ridiculously slow process.
The process started in June 2009 when we began searching for a speech language pathologist that would before an AAC evaluation. This was a lengthy process because there are none covered by insurance in our area. We traveled over 2 hours for one speech evaluation which pointed us in the right direction for getting an AAC evaluation. We contacted a variety of organizations before stumbling onto someone that could do the evaluation we needed for the device. By the end of July, we finally got his evaluation completed.
We spent the next few months working with the speech pathologist to get the report in writing. Finally in the beginning of November, we had gathered and submitted all the required paperwork to order a Vantage Lite. Prentke Romich sent off a request to our insurance company.
Weeks turned to months and we continued to communicate with both sides until about a week ago, the insurance company and Prentke Romich got onto the same page. Now, we are waiting for the legal department at the insurance company to finalize a letter of agreement which is supposed to be completed this week. Hopefully, this will go smoothly and we’ll have the device in hand by the end of the month, if not sooner.
Health Insurance Slow Down
Why can’t our health insurance get their act together? After a lot of hard work on our part, we finally had all the documentation needed to put in a formal request to purchase a communication device for Little T. That was back in November.
I have spent the last month contacting our insurance company every few days and still have not resolved the issue. They have approved the request but have failed to provide the letter stating exactly how much they will pay for each of the approved pieces.
The insurance company must have felt my frustration because as soon as I finished the last paragraph, my phone rang and it was them. I spent a lot of time on the phone but it all appears it’s coming to an end. Hopefully by this time tomorrow, the insurance company should be able to provide what the device company needs to send out the device. If all goes well, Little T will have his device soon.
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