Celebrations

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Yesterday I was feeling very angry, alone and depressed. I found out my insurance lied to me about state mandated covered services. I was happy that they lied, and the services were actually covered, but angry that they lied and I had to make so many phone calls and do so much research to find out the truth (the LAW). I lost half a day to figuring this out.

FYI - Insurance companies in IL are now mandated to cover habilitative services, even if unrelated to autism. This includes any habilitative services ordered by a licensed doctor that are not experimental. This includes OT ordered by an optometrist.

But today, something really made my day...

I picked my son up from after school care and he told me he won the 'character' award for his class. This means that he 'did good'...lol. The principal announced his name on the intercom, he got a certificate, and he gets his picture on the wall for a month. He was really proud of it.

Last year he wanted so bad to get the character award. Last year he said he kept trying so hard to behave to get the award, but he just couldn't control himself and stop getting in trouble. This caused him great distress.

But he got it!! !

I had to make a big deal out of it so we went to Dairy Queen for whatever he wanted. It was wonderful. Really made my day.

I'm very proud of your son.

I am so happy for your son!! !! !

Those character type awards have been hard for my son to come by at school, even though everyone always tells me they adore him, he has no behavior issues, and blah blah blah .... I think that your son's award really means something. A lot of something. I am really really proud for both of you.

how wonderful for him! i bet he feels so proud of getting that award.

and for the therapies, does this mean he will be covered for the treatments you talked about in the insurance thread? if so, thats great. its so hard when you know what they need but you dont have the means to get it.

That is an accomplishment, and you have every reason to celebrate! These are the moments that will keep you pressing forward and fighting for your son!

YES! By law in my state they must cover habilitative services! If this was a year ago, no, they wouldn't have been required to. Even through all this I feel very lucky for my son to have been diagnosed at this time in this state. We also have a law that was implemented only 2 years ago stating that insurance companies are required to treat ASD as any other medical condition, and must cover all related treatments in therapies (including psychiatrist and OT), and can't limit the number of visits, but can put a maximum annual amount on it. From my understanding, previously insurance companies were excluding ASD coverage or treating it as they do mental health, with very limited and restricted coverage.