Sick Kid, Grouchy Parents and Insurance Woes

Wednesday was not a good day at our house. Our son was sick and stayed home from school. And, that was actually the relatively better part of our day.

The good news is that Kai’s sickness appears to be nothing too serous – just a cold, most likely – and, hopefully he will be back in school soon. He said he was feeling better this morning and wanted to go to school, but then said he was cold so, we are keeping him home another day. The worst part of his sickness is that he is having even more trouble sleeping than usual. He was up several times for the last two nights now. And, that makes for a very tired Dad, as it is usually me who gets up in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep.

Tired Dad leads to Grouchy Dad. And, having our son home from school all day leads to Tired Mom which leads to Grouchy Mom. But, even that was not the worst part of our day.

No, the worst is getting the news that our son’s occupational therapy is being denied coverage by the insurance company.

The cost of paying for Kai’s therapy out-of-pocket without insurance picking up much of the tab is too much to bear. Of course, we will appeal the decision. But, the risk that we will not win the appeal makes it such that we will, at least temporarily, have to stop the OT that has been benefiting him so much.

We have gone through this before. Kai’s speech therapy was denied coverage and we had to go through the appeal process before coverage was restored. We also had the same problem with coverage when he was getting OT from a different provider. Both the logical and optimistic part of my mind cannot believe that we will not win our appeal. But, logic and optimism does not always apply when dealing with insurance issues. Our frustration with insurance companies is reaching the boiling point and one day, when I am not so tired, I will give this the proper rant that it deserves.

For now though, a sick boy and many other things await so I will have to cut this short. Sorry, no cute pictures today. Grouchy Dad is not in the mood. Such is part of the roller coaster of life with a child with autism.