I won! And it was so easy this time! | Autism PDD

I haven't really gone into detail about my ST woes at Connor's school, though I have discussed it with Diane (Virginia Greys - thank you so much for the phone call yesterday, BTW. It means so much to know that I have been able to help and make a difference for the better in a child's life).

In a nut shell: At Connor's annual IEP this year that was held last month, the ST (a no-show), openly admitted in the IEP that she did not provide services for Connor for the entire school year, and offered 33 half hour sessions of compensatory time to make up for the lack of services for the year. I argued that there were still several weeks left in the year, and I wanted compensatory time for that too, and that I wanted a non public agency to provide the services so that Connor would not have to miss the additional class time for ST pull out. We agreed to reconvene the IEP on June 6th with the hope that the ST would show up, and authorize the non public agency services, since only she or the district can do that. Well, of course she didn't show up for the reconvene, nor did she return any calls that the school made on my behalf to get an authorization number for non public, so I left the IEP last week and immediately filed for Due Process for 36 half hour speech sessions with a non public agency. The school had offered the compensatory time to be made up at a speech clinic on site during regular school hours, and I argued that my child only spends 3% of his time in Special Ed (30 minutes for ST and 30 minutes for DIS counseling). He already takes two honors classes, and would like to take a third honors class in September, as well as German. It would be detrimental to his academic progress to pull him out for an additional half hour a week, and there is no guarantee that they will have a speech therapist in the fall. They hope they will, but there is a severe shortage of qualified Speech Therapists in California.

Now here comes the good part. I went back and reread his IEP for the 2005-2006 school year. The ST (a different one and also a no show at the annual IEP), reported on Connor's progress, and set his goals for the following year. I recently heard some rumors from inside the school (I have my sources

Yesterday I got a call form the District Special Ed Specialist in charge of Due Process. And let me just say that this was one of the rare occasions where the person that I was dealing with was an absolute doll. She had reviewed my petition for Due Process, and said that the district agreed with me 100% and was willing to offer me the full 36 half hour sessions with a non public agency that I had requested! Well, obviously I was delighted, so while I had her on the phone I mentioned my suspicions that he had not had any speech services for the previous year either. I told her that I understood that there was nothing that could be done about it now, but I thought she should be aware of what was going on. She said that there probably was something to be done about it, and at the very least she could offer me half that time (18 half hour sessions) in addition to the 36 we had already agreed to! She said to give her a few days to look into the matter, and she would get back to me. Well, she called me an hour later, said she had spoken to several people at the school who coraborated my claim that no services had been provided in 2005-2006, and offered me the full year with non public as well! 72 half hour sessions with a private provider at the districts expense! Later that day, I talked to the Special Ed teacher, who told me that several of the parents have filed a class action lawsuit, and Gloria Allred is their attorney, against the district for falsifying documents. I haven't talked to the parent spearheading the lawsuit, nor have I signed the settlement agreement yet, because if I do, I waive my right to any claims prior to the date of signing the agreement. I think I'm going to take the settlement, since it is everything and more that I wanted, but I think I should look into this lawsuit, and see what they are trying to get out of it before I sign away my rights to participate. That's probably why the district was so willing to give me two full years, in the hopes that I would stay away from the class action suit

You SHOULD stay away from a class action suit. They are like quicksand. You'd be a grandmother before your child saw a single hour. Your personal right to Due PRocess goes back TWO years (or more, state by state). They KNEW you could get all the speech time back PLUS they would probably be investigated for fraud. LOTS of speech fraud is going around these days. They put in for government compensation but never actually give the services. Probably true of other specialities, but I heard it's especially true in speech. The District got off easy and they know it. This time they'll be more careful with you. It always pays when you "get something on 'em." Crack open a bottle of bubbly and have a toast to your advocacy skills!

Speech fraud. It happens two ways. First, school districts get money from the government to help reimburse their special education costs (including speech therapy). If they report they've given speech therapy that never happened, they can get the reimbursement without having given the service. That's fraud. Another way this happens is that school districts can ask parents who get Medicaid for their child to allow the school to bill Medicaid for the speech services. This is legitimate and can sometimes be beneficial to the child, so parents may agree. If Medicaid is billed for service hours that were not actually given, that's fraud. I am not saying that the SPEECH THERAPIST committed the fraud. I am saying that the school district committed the fraud. Of course, their defense might be simply sloppy record-keeping. However, just the claim of fraud would bring plenty of headaches down on the school, especially when there seems to be a real basis for that claim. They want to avoid a situation like that like the Plague.

OMG Karen....I'm thrilled for you and Connor most of all...He's the winner since he needs to get this before school and not be taken out of classes for this ....especially with all those hours adding up.

I know you didn't think that you would have it so easy, but looks like the school saw it coming....huh?

I wished that you could have answered the phone yesterday...but I just knew you would want to hear it first...so that's why I left the voicemail....I'm sure you were working hard.

Congrats again on winning the due process!!!! I had been wondering how that was going...and it sounds like not going with the class action is also the way to go....you don't want to have to wait around for that to finally happen.

Way to go MOM!!!!Wow--this sure opened my eyes, I had never heard of such a thing. How
horrible. I am SO glad the school listened to you--GO KAREN!! Way to
advocate for Connor!!

I understand how Medicaid fraud occurs - I am wondering about specific cases that back up Tzoya's statement that "lots of speech fraud is going around these days." I understand that isolated cases do happen but that is true for all medical professions. Statements like that give all of us SLPs a bad name and don't accurately reflect our profession. Speechie, I have to agree -- I know so many deeply dedicated SLPs, that this really shocked me! foxl39248.3987384259Bear in mind that both Tzoya and I live in huge school districts, where the quality of therapists is hit or miss, and the opportunity for fraud is far more tempting and easier to get away with. I don't think anyone means to give speech therapists a bad rap. I've worked with many wonderful ones, as well as crappy ones. As with any industry, there are going to be bad apples, and corruption is rampant in large school districts.

Let me say that I am not saying that the fraud is on the part of the SPEECH THERAPISTS. Not at all. I am talking about school administrations claiming that speech therapy was given, putting in for reimbursement from the State, but then never giving the therapy. As far as I know, the speech therapists are not in charge of this themselves. It's the school administration. However, there is also the possibility that the school administration is putting in for therapy that was never given because the lines of communication are not good. They thought the therapy was given but it wasn't. Something happened in my own son's case that is similar to this. And it could bring the State down hard on our District if word got out. BUt, frankly, I think it was a simple error. For two years my son has been enrolled in two different schools each day. One for academics and one for vocational training (he's 16). As it turns out, the combination of instructional hours between the two schools adds up to one hour less per day than the state minimum for State Aid reimbursement. But you can bet your bottom dollar that my SD put in for State Aid for our son, without toting up the hours and realizing they were gypping him. The truth is, this two-school arrangement is unusual and no one ever checked the TOTAL hours per day. Except me. I figured it out over time. My son seemed to be leaving later and getting home earlier than he should, so it looked up "length of day" on our state ed website and camp up with the info that our son was not getting enough hours. This was DEFINITELY not on purpose. But now they are faced with 360 compensatory education hours. And they are giving it to us without a peep bc the LAST thing they want is the State auditing this and finding out that they claimed State Aid when they shouldn't have. They'd have lots of 'spaling to do.

I was not thinking about fraud among private speech therapists. I'm sure those levels are no greater than fraud in the general population, which is tiny. I was thinking about School Districts claiming aid when they shouldn't. Some have been caught doing this on purpose. And there must be TONS of fraud that isn't caught bc no one caught our SD but me (and I truly believe it was simply a mistake -- a BIG one).

Please accept my apologies if you thought I was fingering speech therapists. Far from it.

That makes more sense.

I did not think you were critical of therapists, but the background helps.

If you do speech therapy and bill Medicaid, you are REQUIRED to keep therapy notes (as you know). However, if you are giving speech therapy paid for through District funds, you don't have to keep notes, unless your particular state requires it. Most of the kids I know who get speech therapy do not get Medicaid. Their parents don't use their private insurance, either. The therapy is paid for thru the special ed budget. If that's the case, some jurisdictions don't even use licensed speech therapists but therapy paras (or whatever non-licensed speech therapists are called in your area). This is legitmate under IDEA 2004. At least it HAS been. Now that IDEA 2004 is completely aligned with NCLB, core subject teachers have to be "highly qualified." I don't think that's a requirement for related service providers yet, but it could be headed in that direction. I just wanted to post that not every speech therapist (even a licensed one) is required to keep notes and a child doesn't even have to be getting speech from a licensed speech therapist. Parents should know this, bit it's a fine point that rarely sees the light of day.

Glad to see a speech therapist on these forums. We could always use good advice in this area, as you can imagine.

No hard feelings here - I do appreciate the apology. I'm a relatively new poster and I am here to learn/gain perspectives of others not stir up trouble! In my district (about 30,000 kids) SLPs complete the billing paperwork and submit it directly to the billing agency that handles our district's Medicaid. We are required to keep notes for every therapy session on what was addressed, how the student responded, times seen for treatment etc. This was also the case for the districts I contracted for in another state. SLPs aren't perfect or saints but overall we are pretty scrupulous! Personally, I can't imagine not keeping really scrupulous records for billing - I could lose my ASHA CCCs and license for not keeping accurate paperwork and fraudulent billing, not to mention legal ramifications. Our documentation can really protect us if there are any questions or problems. I appreciate your point about who is actually providing the "speech therapy" to the student. The requirements for who provides speech vary state to state. Personally, I am not in favor of assistants (except for mabey simple speech sound errors) since so much of what SLPs do is "diagnostic therapy." Since this is an autism board, I'll use the example that new issues are always popping up up when working with my mainstreamed autistic kids so I have to constantly keep figuring out the "why" of it and finding ways to address issues as they arise - if I just prescribed a program for an assistant to follow I wonder if I would be in as good of a position to do that. Same principal applies when working with many other disorders. Just my opinion though - you'll find other SLPs who love their assistants and could not be able to service the vast number of kids on their caseload otherwise (don't get me started on the subject of caseload size!). The whole SLP/SLPA thing is a controversial subject among us SLPs. As far as the documentation issue, you are very correct. It is good practice to keep notes on ALL kids (not just Medicaid billable ones) - you can then prove what you have done for the child (plus there is no way I would be able to remember these details otherwise). I can, however, understand the lack of notekeeping on the part of some SLPs who are pretty overwhelmed with the large numbers on the caseload. As far as I know, assistants are not used in Districts around here. I just know that they are used in some places and that note-taking is only required of school district speech therapists if they are paid for through Medicaid. Of course, any individual district can require anything. Some district pressure speech therapists to NOT keep notes because those notes are subject to FERPA unless they stay completely in your personal file (not the child's file) and are never seen by any one else in the District. Once they're seen by another pair of eyes (someone to type them, a supervisor, etc.), they are subject to being used as evidence in a hearing or being requested by parents any time.

Congratulatons on winning BIG!! I am thrilled for your son and hope he gets it all and then some:) Sarah told me many times she didnt have speech during the week when she should have..I went to her teacher and emailed the ST and they backed each other up and basically stated Sarah was mistaken..my child doesnt lie! I could of requested written reports of what she did but it was mid year and I didnt want to rock the boat

My EYES will be open next year!