It's much harder to justify therapies once a person reaches adulthood
unless their has been some type of major change in health status such as
injury or stroke, etc.  That said, Jan, are you recieving services from a
Speech-language Pathologist?  Are they aware of your difficulties in
recieving payment from the insurance company.  I'm an occupational
therapist working in private practice and we often have to be very aware of
how we write up our evaluations and what codes we put down.  We tend to
work up the medical aspects of the diagnoses.  Straight speech therapy is
difficult to  get insurance to pay for.  Have you tried going through voc
rehab?  You might be able to get them to pay for it since, you need to
speak clearly to get through school and get a job.

Elizabeth Thiers, OTR
email: [log in to unmask]
homepage: http://www.bv.net/~john/bethsot1.html

----------
> From: Jan Nottmeier <[log in to unmask]>
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: [Fwd: Health Insurance, Stuttering (Was Quiet List)]
> Date: Wednesday, March 03, 1999 9:59 PM
> Hi Lara,
>
> what coverage are you talking about?  If you are talking about health
> insurance, I am covered with my mother until the age of 27 because of my
> CP.
>
> However, they refuse to pay for my stuttering therapy claiming it is not
> necessary. Many times I felt like calling them and saying how can you
> say the ability to talk is not necessary for someone with CP. But I have
> filed an appeal, so my parents think calling them on the phone is not
> going to help much because we are dealing with the company headquarters
> not their phone answering service. They have already denied two previous
> appeals though so I think nothing will change.  Sorry if I got off the
> subject there.
>
> I do have one question though.  Does anyone know if stuttering is
> somehow related to CP?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jan