Special Needs
REOM
member
Has anyone chosen private therapy over EI?
REOM
member
In our lovely state, EI is on a sliding scale. Not sure quite how they calculate it, but our payment would be prohibitive. It makes more sense for us to go through our insurance and use private therapists.
My question- if you used private therapists over EI, how was the transition when your child turned 3? I understand that EI 'bridges' over to the public school system, wondering how that transition went with private therapists.
Thanks!
DD1 12.18.06 DD2 9.18.08 DD3 EDD 5.10.2012
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Re: Has anyone chosen private therapy over EI?
Sort of. In my state (or at least in my area) EI therapy is also done on a sliding scale and we fall in the 100% part of the scale. Additionally, they outsource the actual therapy to 3rd party private companies. The do file our insurance for us and then we are just responsible for the co-pay.
The only difference between doing it through EI vs. private for us is the evaluations are free, which is great with DS #2 because we have needed followup evaluations. We also get a coordinator, who honestly doesn't do that much, other than schedule the evals. when I ask for them and he will coordinate with the school system people.
Is there someway you can have a coordinator but do private therapy?
We use private speech and OT as a supplement to EI's speech and OT's services... You mention EI as a bridge to transitioning to public school at 3, so I really wanted to keep them in the loop for that, but I wanted more in the way of quality of service, which is why I added private therapy. Why not do both? In my mind, the more services, the better!
p.s. Oh, and Sylvie will continue to receive OT & speech from her private therapists even after she turns 3.
one thing to consider when you compare EI vs private therapies is the cost of EI likely covers all therapies no matter how many are needed per week, whereas w/ private insurance you may need to pay co-pays per visit. I am an SLP w/ EI. I remember when one kiddo started I was the only one seeing him, and I was weekly. They paid the highest fee which works out to $10/week. This seemed like kind of a lot to me, that they were paying 10/week for me, kind of like a copay, y'know, but more issues popped up, by the time he turned 3 he was getting ST 2x/week, OT 1x/week, a developmental specialist 1x/week and playgroup 1/week, and of course the fee didn't go up even though all his services increased.
On the other hand if you are concerned about private therapies and the bridge, I wouldn't worry too much. Your local district may have a childfind team that seeks to identify and evaluate preschool age kids, you could attend a screening when your DC is close to 2.5. New regs in Mass have schools trying to get a draft IEP in place 30 days before the 3rd birthday, so starting even before your DC is 2.9 is fine, just def. put in writing that you want your child to be evaluated for PK services. The school may accept your DS's private eval reports for eligibility, or they may want to do their own evals. When I was a PK slp and on a child find team, I LOVED it when kids came in with a report, less work for me... to help smooth the transition, you can even invite one of the private therapists to the IEP meeting - they may be willing to come.