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I just need to take a break from placing my daily phonecalls to get information, to let out my frustrations about the PEOPLE whose job it is to answer the phone and ANSWER my questions! Just to recap, we are military family in Germany, there are no medical services here for Jakob, we have paperwork being processed to move us back to the U.S.(compassionate reassignment). The past few days I've been making phone calls to find out all I need to know about tricare benefits(our insurance) and EFMP services (exceptional family member program) in the area we are moving to and so on and so forth. I would just like to say at this point I would find it refreshing if a person just said "Um...I'm really busy right now, and I don't really know what the answer to your question is so I'm just going to tell you nothing and hang up on you!" That would ACTUALLY be better than giving me some stupid WRONG answer or directing my call to another person who gives me a WRONG answer. I actually just had one lady (who's JOB it is to answer the benefits line for Tricare) tell me she doesn't know what ABA therapy is so she can't tell me if it's covered or not, well, I don't really care how educated she is on the various therapies associated with autism, or what ABA therapy IS...I just want to know if it's covered???? BIG SCREAM!! Okay, I think I feel somewhat better now, I'm going back to my nice, please-gve-me-information phone voice to see what I can find out! Thanks for listening.

Looks like they would have a list somewhere that went like, things approved, things not approved.  And couldn't she just look on the list.  Generally wouldn't list go in alphabetical order.  Oh wait, duh, that makes too much sense!!!!!!!!!!!!!  No way would any insurance company, let alone our own government, actually have a program that made sense.

Tammy

Thanks Tammy...I'm actually starting to make a littleprogress. Thanks to a website Michelle posted awhile back about StompProject. It's a program for military families for children with disabilities. Of course, still ridiculous that I got even THAT info off this board instead of the MILITARY place that dx'd Jakob! Probably about a 1,000 more calls and I'll have all the info I need !

Oh I just hate that

Tammy

Scream away!! We all need to do that now & then! I've been crying for the passed week...I think screaming might feel purty good at this point too!

LINDA...aka MWN64...aka Tony'sMom

Tammy

Hey Stephanie! Hope you are finally getting somewhere in all the mess. I know what you mean about having to make a phone call to be transfered to someone to be put on hold to get a recording to tell you to call someone else whos off on vacation and directs you to another secretary whos new and transfers you to someone else whos out to lunch but the man in the office next to hers answers to tell you to call a wrong number! Or SOMETHING like that. And when you DO get someone,.... you forget what you needed to know because you're in shock! I just love those automated machines too!

Just keep the focus once back in the states it will be better! Good Luck!

Stephanie, I hope that you have much better luck than we ever did. We applied for compassionate reassignment 3 times (incl. an appeal) and never did get one; however, if you can prove that MEDICALLY they can't treat your child, you will have a much better chance. I have actually talked to Christine (I think) who is in charge of STOMP, she is really sweet. I have never done anything with STOMP, so don't know what they really do. I do know that TRICARE will do next to nothing. If you fill out your PEOPLES WITH DISABILITIES paperwork, supposedly that will give you an 1000 a month to put towards ABA therapy, unfortunately you need find someone who takes it. I also know that the Army Med Centers/Clinics can approve extra speech and O.T. if you can prove that the services are not adequately being provided by the school. I think the Dr. has to write a referral. I gave up on the WHOLE system about a year ago, let me know if it has become more user friendly. 

Best of Luck and my prayers are with you!  Renee

Hey Renee, actually our compassionate reassignment is going quite smoothly. So far! The battalion commander has already signed off on it , and it has gone to perscom? I'm not sure that's what they call it...I assume it's the next step to getting orders though. Tricare drives me insane though. The beneficiary counselor here told me if I apply for the PFPWD here than I'll have to redo it when I get to the states. I'm not sure if she knows what she's talking about or not, I'm just tired of talking to them this week, and I'm putting it ALL off until next week. The stompproject lady was helpful, I think they are just there to provide information. Or tell me where information is available. She also signed me up for a listserve message board that consist of only military people that deal with disabilities. I've browsed through it and I think it will provide a lot answers to my questions, but it certainly doesn't have the personal touch this board has. If your interested in reading it, there's a link for the listserve on the homepage of stompproject.com ....Jakob is only 23 months, so we aren't dealing with school yet, hopefully I'll get plenty of speech and ot for him with a problem. There's also a 0-3 program in ga. that I've called and they pay a portion of ABA, so I'm hoping I can get tricare to pick up the rest...I can hope right?
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