At the end of January, on the recommendation of a physical therapist that worked with my son at school each week, I took my son to a developmental optometrist for an evaluation. At the end of a regular eye exam and a detailed developmental eye evaluation, it was determined that my son needed vision therapy. His eyes didn’t work as well as they should have when it came to tracking objects, accomodating focus, and binocularity. To me, because my son has Sensory Processing Disorder, this sounded like just another facet to his SPD. Vision Processing Disorder. And vision therapy, to my mind, was no different than speech therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy; all of which my son has received or is currently, receiving.
However, for some inane reason, our health insurance company doesn’t see it this way. They paid for speech therapy and occupational therapy for my son. They cover physical therapy. And just when I thought that they saw the light and decided to cover the vision therapy, we learned that they only cover vision therapy in cases of strabismus (an eye that turns in or out). My little guy had strabismus when he was a baby, but doesn’t have it now. The final word to date is that our insurance company will not cover vision therapy for our son.
We will be taking a hiatus from vision therapy in a few weeks, and I’m undecided as to whether or not to fight the insurance company, yet again, for coverage. How do I make them see the connections that are so obvious to me?
