Working the system

For the past 8 months, Drake has been receiving weekly in-home speech therapy through our state's Early Intervention program. However, California's budget crisis caused a new law to be passed that says children in this program now have to use their private insurance for speech therapy. And the Early Intervention program won't bill their services to insurance carriers, so no more home visits. Since we have private insurance, I was given 30 days to find new therapist.

I don't mind using my insurance to pay for speech therapy. I like using my insurance, because hey, I pay for it anyway. And if it means more kids without insurance get services, that is great, too. What I do mind is that we no longer get home visits. My hubby and I both work full time and every appointment out of the house is a logistical nightmare with our work schedules and child care. We already have 3 out of house appointments each week, this would add a fourth.

So I complained and sniffed around and found out that if you can show documentation that you are on a waiting list for speech therapy, EI will extend your home visits/services until you get off the said wait list. So what did I do? I found the longest wait list ever, over a year, at local hospital who provides pediatric speech therapy. I got a note saying we were on the list, sent it off to EI and got my home visits extended 6 months! We will revisit after 6 months and if we are still on the wait list, well, we'll get another 6 months!

Workin' it.