Every time I turn around, I feel like I'm facing another headache involving health insurance. For the longest time, I was battling our previous carrier over coverage for Sue Sue. Basically, the customer service agent I spoke to on the phone gave me the wrong information. When our astronomical bill arrived the company told me I should have looked up the coverage information on their website rather than rely on what I was told over the phone. Yeah, I won that appeal.
Due to Hubby's new job, we now have a new carrier. I will say I am very pleased with the coverage. We have a much lower deductible and the company pays a much higher percentage after we meet the deductible. Unfortunately, I just found out this particular carrier does not cover speech therapy.
All of my girls have received speech therapy through Early Intervention and preschool since age two. At the end of this recent school year, everyone but Roo was discharged from speech therapy. Roo has made great strides, but still has some work to do on her speech. My thought was to get her speech therapy over the summer at our local children's hospital. It looks like that won't be happening for so many reasons. Our insurance won't cover the therapy because it's not a "medical necessity." After speaking with the speech clinic, we were given a few options. If we pay in advance we would receive a 50% discount. This sounds great until you realize each session is $300 to $600, so we could still shell out $300 per visit. Not really an option on our budget. The Shriner's offer scholarships for speech and learning therapy, provided through the Scottish Rite Foundation. Based on your income, if you are approved for a scholarship, the Foundation will determine your monthly co-pay and then the Foundation will cover the rest. Roo was approved for one of these scholarships, which is a great thing. Unfortunately, even though she has been approved, she's on a waiting list until a scholarship is available. She's also on a waiting list at the speech clinic until an appointment time is available. Sooooo... it looks like my hopes of summer speech therapy won't be happening, but at least she'll resume therapy through school in just a few months. In the meantime, I have some worksheets and materials from the school therapist to work on this summer... you know in all that free time we have!
I'm curious... I know some of my readers have children who also receive speech therapy. Does your insurance cover these services?
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