Jack has been seeing this psychiatrist since November.. and we're only just now receiving a copy of the insurance claim for the first visit. After a few visits (one a month), I contacted the insurance company to find out about the billing process- when we get the bills for the 2 visits in 2012, will we still get the 2012 prices? In other words, Jack had already met his deductible for medical for 2012, so I wanted to make sure they were not going to be able to charge us for a new year if we didn't get the claims til this year. The insurance company assured me that I didn't have to worry. When I asked the person at the front desk of the Dr's office about it, she said that the person doing the billing had gotten about 6 months behind, and.. well, who knows when we'd start getting a bill. We got our first claim from the insurance company the other day. For November's visit. And surprise! Not only do we not owe anything, but the insurance company states on there that the Dr's office is not allowed to charge us for the visit because the time they took to file was not within the time allowed per their own contract with Cigna. Woo hoo! That's $185 that we don't have to pay any percentage of, just for the consult. I honestly have no idea what any other visits after that are, but before we even saw this doctor, I made sure that we wouldn't owe any more than the 20% copay for each visit thereafter. So we wait to see what else comes in, and when.
Second, I got a phone call Friday morning from the director of Special Ed for the school district. As she has gotten to know me a bit, and has observed Jack several times in his classroom (and attended IEP meetings, etc), she has graciously offered to be the one to administer his Reading and Math achievement tests at the end of April. The person who I tentatively scheduled with had first suggested that he go to his home school to take them (since he would know the adults and be comfortable with them), which did not seem wise, considering Jack's sudden removal from school. I was also hesitant about taking him to another school, where he might also be distracted with any other kids in the room. My real hope was that she (the person in charge of scheduling the test) would just do it at the district office. The Special Ed director called me and said that after talking it over with this other person, the district office is the best place to do it, and that no other kids will be in the room. I was really touched that she thought to offer to do this. I know that Jack's IEP is not "active" so to speak, so there isn't really much to offer in the way of accommodations. That said, he will be in a room by himself, on two days (each test is on a different day), and has what is (I'm going to assume) more than enough time to take them. He can bring water, pencils, etc. The nice thing is that I don't have to pay for the tests (which I guess is required for the high schoolers). Anyway, that was just so nice, that I couldn't help but share!
Then we got our free pool membership certificate in the mail, which I have to take in to redeem. The kids are super excited!
Perhaps better than that is having a chance to email back and forth with the mother of Jack's BFF. (I don't know if this kid thinks of Jack as his BFF, but I know Jack does, and having taken the kiddo with us to the Bounce place, I was able to exchange a bit of information with his mom that I hadn't shared before. It ended up with a really positive exchange.
The boy's mom thought it was really great that I was homeschooling Jack, and had mentioned that she might end up doing that with her youngest child. I talked a bit about why I ended up pulling Jack from school, and she told me about the struggles her oldest child has had over the years. It turns out that she and I have a lot in common. I have to say, it is so nice to know someone who is like me in a lot of ways (we're both very reserved, for starters), and to find out that we have experienced many of the same challenges with our kids. Her youngest son (the one who is close to Jack) has apparently stuck up for Jack at school when the other kids have made fun of him. He has had experience dealing with someone in his family who struggles, so he can be real laid back and understanding with Jack. I told her how sad I was about nobody showing up to Jack's party but her son, and how special it was that he cares so much about Jack, and I felt like I needed to express that to her at some point- and our email exchange gave me the opportunity to do so. I thanked her for not shying away from her son having a friendship with Jack, and she was very welcoming of the boys' friendship, so that makes me so very happy. (Today we were at the park, and a couple of girls were there, one of which was recently at this boy's birthday party. She recognized Jack, and told him that the boy really missed him at school. That is so sweet. Clearly Jack is important to him if these other girls know about him).
These things were great positives for this week. The negatives? Jack is really struggling. So hyper! He can barely sit still, is easily frustrated and upset. He had a terrible second Soccer practice, because he was so upset that he missed the ball. He just turned into a puddle of jello on the floor, and couldn't recover. I was so bummed when his dad brought him home, and he was in tears. Hopefully next week goes better.
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