Autism Learning Partners has someone emailing me from California (we live in NYS) pressuring me to do more after-school hours than I feel comfortable with. This company actually doesn’t do that great a job BUT my child likes going to their center and the current BT is good (we spent a lot of time waiting for a good BT). So I put up with it because the kid is doing pretty good with BT and the other company doesn’t take our insurance. I know this company has changed their policy in an effort to have kids do more hours overall, which I don’t agree with. It should be decided on an individual basis. This scheduler is harassing me to have her do ABA right after school until 7pm Mon to Wed. So she wakes up at 7am and comes home from school miserable as it is. It would be a 12 hour day. Don’t know how effective therapy would be the last few hours of that. Also, my child’s health is not doing too well at the moment. We’ve done til 7 before and it burnt her out badly. I’ve been telling them 6pm is my cutoff which the BCBA had said was fine. Now this CA scheduler is saying that she doesn’t have enough hours according to their “company policy.” We already skip an entire day of school so she can have open availability on Friday and Saturday. The thing that upsets me is that I got no acknowledgement about my child’s health or burnout. She wants me to give a 5 year old a 44+ hour week when she is already exhausted from regular school which is high demand (teacher does ABA principals). She would have 1 hour between ABA and bed. The company PDF she sent me clearly says they want 15-20 hours for kids that attend school. I’m willing to do 17 but that’s not good enough and I’m getting a veiled threat that it’s not “acceptable” because my kids recommended hours is 20. Kid originally only got 16 hours and I asked for more myself for times when the kid was on vacation from school. It’s so frustrating especially considering they left us with NO service many times and that was acceptable. Also, since kid gets sick so often I know that if I schedule more, we will have to cancel some and then be penalized for it. Also they don’t reimburse BTs for cancellations. Sorry, I know this is part venting. I’m just stressed out because of the consecutive crisis lately. I know things will work out, but I wish I had another ABA to go to. I am going to talk to her BCBA again before I say anything else to the scheduler.
Answer:
Anytime my gut tells me something feels "predatory" I want to LISTEN to it and act accordingly. You have to remember ABA to you is therapy. ABA to an Agency is billable hours... aka $$$.
Now I do like a child in the beginning to have a lot of hours and that is because to your insurance, they feel if you are getting therapy, over time you will need less of it, so from my standpoint, I always go in high and every 6 months, insurance has the right to negotiate this down for the same reason, its costing them $$.
So knowing the above, as a parent you don't just want the hours, you want quality. Good ABA looks like play. From the way you describe your current situation, it doesn't sound that way. Notice that. It's your parental gut telling you something is wrong and we need to course correct.
But you have to be systematic in how you approach this whole process.
1. Find an agency
2. Do the Eval
3. Agree on Hours (Remember you can start high but not use them all)
4. Assess how the treatment is being dispersed
5. Is my child improving
6. Tweak or Toss (Find another agency, or therapist if this isn't working out)
Let me know if you have any follow up questions and if this is helpful.
Anytime my gut tells me something feels “predatory” I want to LISTEN to it and act accordingly. You have to remember ABA to you is therapy. ABA to an Agency is billable hours… aka $$$.
Now I do like a child in the beginning to have a lot of hours and that is because to your insurance, they feel if you are getting therapy, over time you will need less of it, so from my standpoint, I always go in high and every 6 months, insurance has the right to negotiate this down for the same reason, its costing them $$.
So knowing the above, as a parent you don’t just want the hours, you want quality. Good ABA looks like play. From the way you describe your current situation, it doesn’t sound that way. Notice that. It’s your parental gut telling you something is wrong and we need to course correct.
But you have to be systematic in how you approach this whole process.
1. Find an agency
2. Do the Eval
3. Agree on Hours (Remember you can start high but not use them all)
4. Assess how the treatment is being dispersed
5. Is my child improving
6. Tweak or Toss (Find another agency, or therapist if this isn’t working out)
Let me know if you have any follow up questions and if this is helpful.