Comments on Autism Salutes: Lies and Smokescreens from The Department of Defen...

2011-02-18T08:54:48.863-05:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

what has become of the lawsuit? any news and upda...

2011-02-18T08:54:32.688-05:00

what has become of the lawsuit? any news and updates would be appreicated. We are ADAF and due to retire in October 2011 and have an 8 year old son with severe Autism. Right now he is getting 10 hours a week of in home ABA through ECHO but we are so worried on what will happen when we lose that benefit. MA has signed the ARICA 207 bill but it is still so new no one knows what it really does, how it works or how it will effect us.
Thanks

We are AD and have not enrolled in ECHO yet. We j...

2010-10-13T16:53:26.498-04:00

We are AD and have not enrolled in ECHO yet. We just haven't had time yet, what with the speech therapy, IEP issues, and looking into homeschooling (Which are a HUGE underrepresented block of autistic children as their numbers aren't counted at all!) We are actually looking into doing Son-Rise, it has a similar success rate as ABA, and while the costs are large up front for the training, you do the therapy yourself and can save hundreds of thousands over the course of years. Unfortunately, as this is a "breakthrough" (meaning new) treatment, it isn't sanctioned by TriCare ECHO and will not likely be available for re-imbursement for years down the road, which could potentially save the military thousands for parents that are willing/able to invest the time and energy to learn and implement it in their own homes (not that we don't have enough to do as military families with special needs children!) We have looked into ABA, and while a great therapy, it isn't the BEST fit for our child, IMHO. My point is, that ALL therapies available are under/not funded- (including biomed! Although I am lucky we live in a place with a Tricare authorized DAN! Doctor and we can work around MOST of the RED tape-excluding supplements)
I just hope that miltary health care gets on the prevention and remediation bandwagon before our children are all products of a broken medical system with an endless cycle of fixing what is broken and breaking something else in the process....

We are newly retired, with a 11 year old with auti...

2010-07-20T12:20:48.322-04:00

We are newly retired, with a 11 year old with autism. He was getting ABA while we had ECHO. Now that we are retired, we have to pay for it out of pocket. Our therapist is giving us a discounted rate, while we figure out what we are going to do. Discounted is still more then we can afford, but we have cut his hours down to 4 hours a week. Should we still have them bill Tricare, even though they won't pay while this is being considered? Please help we are desperate for him to get the only thing that has helped him.