An update

Well now I'm pretty miffed. I called Kaiser on Monday to ask exactly what
our "mental health" coverage is like with them. It took them until this
evening to get back to me. Turns out we have very good mental health
benefits--each family member is allowed 20 visits per year (psychiatrist,
psychologist, or therapist) at a $20 copayment. A full psych evaluation is
completely covered. This is *not* what they told us 2 years ago when my SS
was going to therapy through Kaiser--in fact it was the actual therapist who
was seeing him, who kept dragging all of us into the room for "family
therapy" who said that their system really "wasn't set up for individual or
long-term therapy." So we've spend almost $1000 in the last 6 months on
therapy (that went nowhere) and we didn't even need to!

Anyway, I'll be calling tomorrow to make an appointment for the psych eval
for my SS. Hopefully I can get him in soon.
--
ColoradoSkiBum

"ColoradoSkiBum" wrote in message
...
Well now I'm pretty miffed. I called Kaiser on Monday to ask exactly what
our "mental health" coverage is like with them. It took them until this
evening to get back to me. Turns out we have very good mental health
benefits--each family member is allowed 20 visits per year (psychiatrist,
psychologist, or therapist) at a $20 copayment. A full psych evaluation
is
completely covered. This is *not* what they told us 2 years ago when my
SS
was going to therapy through Kaiser--in fact it was the actual therapist
who
was seeing him, who kept dragging all of us into the room for "family
therapy" who said that their system really "wasn't set up for individual
or
long-term therapy." So we've spend almost $1000 in the last 6 months on
therapy (that went nowhere) and we didn't even need to!

Anyway, I'll be calling tomorrow to make an appointment for the psych eval
for my SS. Hopefully I can get him in soon.
--
ColoradoSkiBum

I understand why you're miffed! However at least you know now and hopefully
it will be a turning point. Fingers crossed for you!

Moi

"ColoradoSkiBum" wrote in message
...
Well now I'm pretty miffed. I called Kaiser on Monday to ask exactly what
our "mental health" coverage is like with them. It took them until this
evening to get back to me. Turns out we have very good mental health
benefits--each family member is allowed 20 visits per year (psychiatrist,
psychologist, or therapist) at a $20 copayment. A full psych evaluation
is
completely covered. This is *not* what they told us 2 years ago when my
SS
was going to therapy through Kaiser--in fact it was the actual therapist
who
was seeing him, who kept dragging all of us into the room for "family
therapy" who said that their system really "wasn't set up for individual
or
long-term therapy." So we've spend almost $1000 in the last 6 months on
therapy (that went nowhere) and we didn't even need to!

Oh, no! I have Kaiser insurance, too (mid-Atlantic region), and we're
extremely happy with it. We originally joined b/c of the awesome fertility
benefits (I needed to be on fertility treatment to conceive my children). I
know their mental health coverage is very good, and at least here nothing
has changed in 2 years. That's ludicrous that a therapist tried to induce
you to spend more time on outside care, though I can see it was to his
benefit.

I just had to pay to re-up our business health care, and Kaiser went up over
$150/month for our particular family plan (AO plan). That's nearly $2,000
more each year! Last year it was nothing like this, though I'd definitely
heard that rates were going sky-high. :-O I just keep reminding myself
that I'm happy with the plan, it's hard to find good coverage as a small
business, *and* other insurance companies charge a lot, too. I *hate* open
season b/c the rates keep going up!!!

Jennifer

"ColoradoSkiBum" wrote in message
...
Well now I'm pretty miffed. I called Kaiser on Monday to ask exactly what
our "mental health" coverage is like with them. It took them until this
evening to get back to me. Turns out we have very good mental health
benefits--each family member is allowed 20 visits per year (psychiatrist,
psychologist, or therapist) at a $20 copayment. A full psych evaluation
is
completely covered. This is *not* what they told us 2 years ago when my
SS
was going to therapy through Kaiser--in fact it was the actual therapist
who
was seeing him, who kept dragging all of us into the room for "family
therapy" who said that their system really "wasn't set up for individual
or
long-term therapy." So we've spend almost $1000 in the last 6 months on
therapy (that went nowhere) and we didn't even need to!

Anyway, I'll be calling tomorrow to make an appointment for the psych eval
for my SS. Hopefully I can get him in soon.


Good work! I hope things work out well.

-Aula

Oh good. I really hope that you can get the help your SS needs and things
start turning around for your family. Good luck. )
--
Sue (mom to three girls)
I'm Just a Raggedy Ann in a Barbie Doll World...

ColoradoSkiBum wrote in message
...
Well now I'm pretty miffed. I called Kaiser on Monday to ask exactly what
our "mental health" coverage is like with them. It took them until this
evening to get back to me. Turns out we have very good mental health
benefits--each family member is allowed 20 visits per year (psychiatrist,
psychologist, or therapist) at a $20 copayment. A full psych evaluation
is
completely covered. This is *not* what they told us 2 years ago when my
SS
was going to therapy through Kaiser--in fact it was the actual therapist
who
was seeing him, who kept dragging all of us into the room for "family
therapy" who said that their system really "wasn't set up for individual
or
long-term therapy." So we've spend almost $1000 in the last 6 months on
therapy (that went nowhere) and we didn't even need to!

Anyway, I'll be calling tomorrow to make an appointment for the psych eval
for my SS. Hopefully I can get him in soon.
--
ColoradoSkiBum

"ColoradoSkiBum" wrote in message
...
Well now I'm pretty miffed. I called Kaiser on Monday to ask exactly what
our "mental health" coverage is like with them. It took them until this
evening to get back to me. Turns out we have very good mental health
benefits--each family member is allowed 20 visits per year (psychiatrist,
psychologist, or therapist) at a $20 copayment. A full psych evaluation
is
completely covered. This is *not* what they told us 2 years ago when my
SS
was going to therapy through Kaiser--in fact it was the actual therapist
who
was seeing him, who kept dragging all of us into the room for "family
therapy" who said that their system really "wasn't set up for individual
or
long-term therapy." So we've spend almost $1000 in the last 6 months on
therapy (that went nowhere) and we didn't even need to!

Anyway, I'll be calling tomorrow to make an appointment for the psych eval
for my SS. Hopefully I can get him in soon.


i hate it when that happens...

good luck, hon...*Huggles*

Jess

In misc.kids ColoradoSkiBum wrote:

: Well now I'm pretty miffed. I called Kaiser on Monday to ask exactly what
: our "mental health" coverage is like with them. It took them until this
: evening to get back to me. Turns out we have very good mental health
: benefits--each family member is allowed 20 visits per year (psychiatrist,
: psychologist, or therapist) at a $20 copayment. A full psych evaluation is
: completely covered.

The full psych evaluation will be priceless if done well. Your SS may
need more than 20 therapy sessions a year, but at least you're off to a
great start. For more challenging therapeutic cases, people can go twice
a week for a couple of years.

Best of luck to you all.

Noreen

"ColoradoSkiBum" wrote in message ...

Anyway, I'll be calling tomorrow to make an appointment for the psych eval
for my SS. Hopefully I can get him in soon.

This is great news! I was hoping to hear something like this, and
remembering when we had Kaiser, it seemed that we had good MH
benefits, though we didn't use them. I remembered reading it in the
coverage listings. Hopefully, you can get him started (after the full
eval., of course), and get close to 20 visits by year end? Do they
manage the years on the calendar or by when you joined up?

Anyway, I hope to see more good news soon!

Tina.

: Anyway, I'll be calling tomorrow to make an appointment for the psych
eval
: for my SS. Hopefully I can get him in soon.
:
: This is great news! I was hoping to hear something like this, and
: remembering when we had Kaiser, it seemed that we had good MH
: benefits, though we didn't use them. I remembered reading it in the
: coverage listings. Hopefully, you can get him started (after the full
: eval., of course), and get close to 20 visits by year end? Do they
: manage the years on the calendar or by when you joined up?

I'm not sure if they go by calendar year or enrollment year; my guess is
enrollment year but I could be wrong. But he can't even get in until
mid-November anyway, so there really isn't any way to get in 20 visits this
calendar year anyway.

When I talked to someone at Kaiser this morning to set this up, at the
mental health facility, I told her what the doctor had told me almost 2
years ago. She says to me, "well we really aren't meant for long-term
therapy, not like a visit every week or anything, more like once a month."
I pointed out to her that 20 visits a year was *way* more than once a month.
--
ColoradoSkiBum

In article ,
"ColoradoSkiBum" wrote:

Well now I'm pretty miffed. I called Kaiser on Monday to ask exactly what
our "mental health" coverage is like with them. It took them until this
evening to get back to me. Turns out we have very good mental health
benefits--each family member is allowed 20 visits per year (psychiatrist,
psychologist, or therapist) at a $20 copayment. A full psych evaluation is
completely covered.

That is really great news!

This is *not* what they told us 2 years ago when my SS
was going to therapy through Kaiser--in fact it was the actual therapist who
was seeing him, who kept dragging all of us into the room for "family
therapy" who said that their system really "wasn't set up for individual or
long-term therapy."

Ah. A therapist you can trust.

So we've spend almost $1000 in the last 6 months on
therapy (that went nowhere) and we didn't even need to!

Eeeek!

Anyway, I'll be calling tomorrow to make an appointment for the psych eval
for my SS. Hopefully I can get him in soon.

Good luck!

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Jeez; if only those Ancient Greek storytellers had known about the astonishing
creature that is the *Usenet hydra*: you cut off one head, and *a stupider one*
grows back..." -- MJ, cam.misc