Gingerbread Mama Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I have read several on the threads here about vision therapy and cringed. I know my boys likely need it, but seeing all those $$$ in the posts worried me. I kept putting off checking into it. Now I'm sorry I did! I called yesterday and spoke to the ONE person that was located anywhere close to us on COVD's website. It turns out that this woman was actually a dr I took the kids to years ago (she was just starting out in eye care at the time), so I know "of" her and like and trust her. Also, the cost is ... well ... almost shamefully cheap. The evaluations are $84 per child, if their diagnosis comes back as medical in nature they will only be $40 as per my insurance specialist copay. The VT sessions are a one on one session with the VT therapist, once a week, to the tune of $120 per pop. She then sends home homework to be done each day until the next visit. They will sell "blocks" of 10 sessions (and she said they don't want to sell more than 10 sessions because you might not need it) at a discounted price of $700. That makes it just $70 a session! They re-evaluate after 10 weeks to see what progress is made and how/whether to proceed. The woman I spoke to spent nearly 45 minutes on the phone with me, discussing what I was seeing with the kids. She said (and she did clarify that she couldn't diagnose anything over the phone) that it *sounded* like both boys issues would be something that would fall under a "medical" diagnosis, which she said she had good results getting our particular insurance to pay for. I can certainly imagine my youngest would end up being medical, he has an eye that you can sit and watch "drift" out sometimes. Anyway, if the insurance would pick up some of the tab that would REALLY be the icing on the cake. If not, though, I'd be looking at a little over $1500 for the VT (at the beginning, anyway, they could need more.) I did decide to have them test DD. I haven't noticed any eye issues with her, but this will also take care of their yearly eye exam and, honestly, I'd feel sort of bad to have the boys evaluated and not even check to make sure her eyes work correctly. We go the 14th of next month. I'm so excited, my husband can't understand why :lol: I guess a huge part of it is feeling like we are finally DOING something. Well, that and the fact that I can quit sweating how we would ever afford this! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Glad you found someone you trust so you can make a move on this! Keep us posted on what she finds out! :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamakelly Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Our VT sessions are only (only LOL) $100 a piece and we go once a week. I'm shocked at how much people here pay for VT. I'm not surprised that they say only ten sessions to start. Our VT Doctor typically recommends 12 sessions. Marlie was finished in 14 sessions, and I was the one who asked for it to be extended. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gingerbread Mama Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share Posted March 1, 2012 Our VT sessions are only (only LOL) $100 a piece and we go once a week. I'm shocked at how much people here pay for VT. I'm not surprised that they say only ten sessions to start. Our VT Doctor typically recommends 12 sessions. Marlie was finished in 14 sessions, and I was the one who asked for it to be extended. May I ask why you chose to extend her therapy? I'm just curious if there are things I should be looking for. I was only suprised about the 10 session blocks because I had steeled myself for some of what I've read on the board (huge amount of sessions at $140+ each.) About the "only" $100 (or $70) each......I know, right? I think that is what threw my husband for a loop....the fact that I was saying how "inexpensive" it could seemed LOL LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Every place is different. You just have to roll with what your place does. One difference though can be that some places go on to work on visual processing (more visits after the initial run for focusing, convergence, etc.), and some places don't go on to do visual processing. Unless they do testing and show that the visual processing has kicked in (which it does for some kids after you fix the basics), I think it's good to go on and do it. So our initial run was 3-4 months, like what you're describing, then we tested the visual processing stuff to see where it was at and started into a new run working on visual processing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mamakelly Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 May I ask why you chose to extend her therapy? I'm just curious if there are things I should be looking for. I asked to extend by 2 weeks because I was nervous about being finished with her therapy and everything "sticking", LOL. She made huge progress during the beginning of therapy, which isn't typical. Our VT doctor says it's typical for kids to make the most progress up to 6 months after VT is finished. So I was amazed at how well she was doing and just wanted a little extra reinforcement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gingerbread Mama Posted March 1, 2012 Author Share Posted March 1, 2012 Mamakelly - I see. I can understand that. Elizabeth - so is that something I need to ask about before they start the evals (whether they will initially test for, and treat the processing)? How do you know if it was successfully treated? I feel woefully unprepared for what I should know going in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jumping In Puddles Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 I have read several on the threads here about vision therapy and cringed. I know my boys likely need it, but seeing all those $$$ in the posts worried me. I kept putting off checking into it. Now I'm sorry I did! I'm so glad you found someone affordable! Did I mention I paid $850 for an evaluation (granted, that's 2 kids) already, out of pocket, with not a lick of therapy? LOL! Glad I didn't scare you away because your prices are AWESOME! :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted March 1, 2012 Share Posted March 1, 2012 Mamakelly - I see. I can understand that. Elizabeth - so is that something I need to ask about before they start the evals (whether they will initially test for, and treat the processing)? How do you know if it was successfully treated? I feel woefully unprepared for what I should know going in. Yes, that's ABSOLUTELY something you can ask right now! Our place was kind of gentle about it. They gave you a written estimate, signed and everything, with what they expected as far as time. But when I was going into that, I sort of thought all those words they used meant the whole enchilada, kwim? They explained along the way that visual processing was the next step after that (the way they approach it, some places integrate), and that some kids needed it, some kids didn't. So I'm just saying it's something you can ask. They'll certainly know how they're doing things and be able to explain it. Or they'll look at you funny and it will turn out they don't work on visual processing at all. That has happened around here too. You just never know. But it's totally fair to ask, absolutely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gingerbread Mama Posted March 2, 2012 Author Share Posted March 2, 2012 Thanks, Elizabeth. That's good to now. I'm trying to brainstorm a listing things I think I might need to ask but would probably forget lol Jumping - I think it's so unfair that the therapy our kids might need isn't covered by insurance but, if we choose to drug them, they will cough up money no question. That's just my personal rant :) of course, with our last insurance they would pay for a (traditional) eye exam but NOT the glasses if you were found to need them. Go figure. Yes you have a problem, yes you pay us a fortune in premiums, no we won't help you fix your problem. Sigh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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