Our son (who is now 9) was tested last year at Nationwide Children's Hospital here in Columbus, Ohio and finally confirmed to have AS. Okay good, confirmation, let's move on. Please come in and see our psychologist for recommendations, they said. I thought you were the psychologist, I said. Silly me. Oh, he was, but he just does diagnosing and others do recommendations, so wait three or four months to see her. So we did and when we saw her we sat down and she said "Did anyone call you ahead of time about today's appointment?" I said "No." Then she told us that today's appointment would not be covered by insurance because while she had a PhD, she had no license in Ohio. And that the social worker sitting in the corner was present on the off-chance that they could re-submit and get covered under her name. She also said that it really didn't matter because she was the resident expert on Asperger's (the one and only) and that any services that they recommend were going to be provided by her and therefore also would not be covered (since she was unlicensed) so, did we want to stay for the (useless) appointment? Since I was in shock, my husband answered for us, "NO." That was in November of 2011, an appointment we had waited months for. In their defense, she said this was the first time they had ever had this problem. And she said we could sign up for another appointment and that maybe by the time the appointment rolled around she'd have her license or I could try to fight my insurance company over THEIR irrational decision. So I politely made an appointment for January, 2012. At some point (I believe it was at a later date on the phone) I asked the psychologist if the licensing issue had to do with moving from another state. She then snapped, "I don't have my license in Ohio, I am not going to explain myself to you, I have young children too." I had no idea I was touching on a sensitive issue or attacking her, but apparently I was.
We came back in January (insurance problem resolved. I'm still not sure if she got her license or if they submitted under the name of the hospital instead of the name of the psychologist) and had what I thought was a good meeting with her. She did not recommend individual therapy for my son. She said that she really did recommend their MF-PEP Multi-Family Psycho-Educatioal Psychotherapy group where 8 sets of parents meet in one room and 8 kids with AS meet in another (with facilitators of course). She would submit him for the next session of that but that it wouldn't start for three months. In the meantime we were already signed up for some other social skills course that the original testing folks had recommended (somehow, even though they were diagnosers and not recommenders). We would wait.
My son is named Max. He doesn't have all the hallmarks of AS. He doesn't super-focus on certain subjects the way I've heard some AS people tend to...and some other stuff he doesn't seem to do. And one-on-one social dynamics are pretty navigable. But WOW group dynamics are tough. So the social skills class was hard at first but we came up with a rewards system and it really started working when most of the kids dropped out and there were only three left. That was a number he could handle better. But what he really needs is the challenge of the MF-PEP class with 8 kids in it, so he can really be challenged with some facilitators there to help him that know what they're doing.
So please, stick with me.
Recently, I went in to see the psychologist and talk about some of my parenting. She asked "Did you get your letter for the MF-PEP class starting this month?". "No." I said. She immediately started typing someone an email and said she would look into that and get back to me. I left and from then on she's been avoiding my phone calls (as far as I can tell). After many unreturned calls to her and to the person who organizes the groups (the person with a voice mail message that said in April that she'd be back in the office January 12, also the person who's supposedly on vacation, but then her voice mail message starts changing after I mention that it's three months out of date). Three days after my visit, I get a letter in the snail mail inviting me to a different class -- a parenting class for AS (a class that is totally useless to me first because its held on Wednesday mornings for nine weeks in a row when my husband and I are both at work and secondly because my son is not even involved). Apparently, the psychologist figured if she just avoided my phone calls for a few days I would get this letter and the substitute class would shut me up and I would quit calling her. Well, it didn't as you can imagine. Finally, I got through to someone who was sympathetic, helpful and of course too low on the totem pole to do anything for me. She was appalled that I had not been called back and told me that no, I would not be in the spring MF-PEP class this month. It was full, no one had ever put us on the waiting list last winter; the ball had obviously been dropped somewhere, we were not included at all. All she could do was put me on the list for the summer class starting in July. (Even though Max is already scheduled to pick up again with a larger social skills class in the summer which he was supposed to have been ready for, by having taken the spring MF-PEP class).
My plan is to speak to the director when she gets back from vacation next week and then maybe write a letter to the hospital. Has anyone ever heard of medical care being so bad? The worst thing is this: AS FAR AS I KNOW, THIS IS THE ONLY GAME IN TOWN for AS in Columbus, Ohio. I don't know where else to get services, to get advice, to get anything. I know Ohio State University does diagnostics, but that's it -- no services at all. HELP!! ! These people are causing me stress!! !
Last edited by paddockhills on 10 Apr 2012, 6:55 am, edited 1 time in total.
07 Apr 2012, 10:57 am
