Taking the Scenic Route

Spent much of today on the phone trying to get Zane in to be evaluated.  (have played phone tag the last week or two with a number of people…I had enough of that!)  The place I wanted to have him evaluated doesn’t accept the insurance for residents in this county.  I have heard that it can be well over $500-$1000 for the testing if not paid by insurance.  I asked the lady on the phone which agency she recommended that would accept my insurance…she gave me two places, but something in her voice said that she wouldn’t really recommend either of them.  I decided to call the college and see if they had somebody they recommend.  As it turns out, they have people there that are qualified to do the testing.  I got the impression it wouldn’t be a 3 month wait either, but it would cost $150.  *sigh*  They have discounted rates for therapy, but not the initial evaluation.  They don’t accept the insurance either.

I think that is the route we are going to go though.  We will make it work somehow.  I trust the people there.  I noticed in the bios of some of the profs, there are several who specialize in what I suspect Zane to have.  Plus, they have classes (for the Grad programs) in those specific things too.  (as well as Autism Spectrum Disorder, but that is more common, so it was more notable that they had the language processing disorder specialists I might need)  The person on the phone sounded like she was trying not to sound excited at the prospect of seeing a pragmatic-semantic disorder kid. (lol.  I totally understand the intellectual curiosity aspect…sort of reminded me of when doctors would get really interested when I said I had Endo as a teen…it is one of those things you read about in the literature, but don’t see a lot IRL)   I am confident that they will understand the subtle differences between the S-P stuff and the other various ASD dx.   

They were also just so much nicer on the phone than anybody I had run into.  (although the school psychologist sounded nice, just fairly rushed)  I felt like a person rather than a number.  I guess we will see if that trend continues.  Another nice thing, that is just incidental, the place this testing would take place at is almost within walking distance.  Not a deciding factor by any means, but cool none the less.

We are going to go in next Monday to the elementary school to sign the paperwork that will allow the testing to begin through the school district.  Then, we will schedule another hearing test, and then they will try to get us set up for an evaluation, but will send us to somebody else, again, for an ‘official’ diagnosis.  (if I understood her correctly).  By going through the college, I think I will speed this up by around 6-12 months to get a diagnosis in place and start getting some help.