Autism: Discontinued State Insurance Coverage, continued

I completed the article I mentioned here. It's been submitted to the newspaper serving our state capitol, and I'll let you know if/when they run it. While I manage the progress, I'll be vacant from this blog, but I will post a link to it on "Same Child, Different Day" in the end. If for some reason the deal falls through, I'll try again somewhere else and repeatedly; I will let you know the outcome. At the very least, I will post the article on the "Same Child, Different Day" blog, and my Old Stand-by, Associated Content.

I'll keep you posted.

~Jon

Autism: Discontinued State Insurance Coverage

I had another post planned, but it will have to wait. I'll be taking a hiatus for a couple weeks as I'm currently working on another writing project.

It would seem that today our State medicaid office has decided that Nolan has received all the speech therapies he needs for 2009. Because we have private insurance through my work as well, they feel they have been providing him more services than he's entitled to.

In order to make things fair for him and all the rest of the recipients of speech services (regardless of need or cause), one Medicaid representative (I'll keep her name to myself for the time being) has made the unilateral decision to yank our son's services away from him. These are services he has been getting for two years now, and because the therapies have been "prolonged" in their words (and because we parents have been thoroughly trained in the therapy process), we can now stop being parents and take over as his therapists, utilizing the school-trained therapists (who get paid to do this) for guidance.

Some soulless, anonymous asshat in a, barren, similarly soulless office has decided that all children who receive therapy services need the same amount and quality of services, and once a limit has been reached, said services are withdrawn by the bureaucracy. I'm all about saving money. But just because my health insurer is providing a degree of coverage, should Medicaid stop covering the remainder because it's not fair to everyone else?

Apparently so.

Anyhow, I could go on here forever, but I have an article to write. It's one of the things I'm good at. Oh, I'll remain objective and fair, and I will keep much of my emotion in check (just to make it a balanced report). But I have to take a little time away from SCDD.

Just because I'm taking leave for a couple weeks or so, doesn't mean you should stop commenting. I need your feedback and input. Please. Keep commenting and I'll keep checking; I just won't be posting for a bit. So here I go, off to the paper-and-ink pages.

Ugh.

~Jon

Off Topic: My New Writing Blog

This is a quick post and way WAY off topic --- As some of you may know and/or realize, I like to write. At the risk of sounding like I'm patting myself on the back, I think I do a pretty darn good job, too.

For a while now, I've been posting the odd article or two on Associated Content and that has been alright. But my first true love is the short story. For a couple of months now, a fellow blogger friend has been nagging (nee, encouraging) me to post some of my works.

Sure, it's dangerous putting your creations out there for free for the world to see, but for me, that's just the point. So I've created a blog dedicated solely to my writing. It may not be Harper's Weekly or New Yorker, but it is somewhere to be seen.

So if you are interested in that sort of thing, please stop by Read All You Want and, you know, read all you want. It doesn't matter, 'cause I'll make more! Click on that link above, or here: http://jonwrites.wordpress.com/

Hope to see you there.

~Jon