Primary Parent who deals with medical

[Anonymous]

DS has adhd and it's becoming more complex as he ages. In your household, is there a primary parent that deals with medical?

Please list your household situation and who manages medical and how it works.

[Anonymous]

I do in our house. But as the kids have gotten older it’s gotten easier. DS was dx was 5. At that time I dealt with schools and medical and it was easier to have 1 person in charge. I would share info with DH and he would ask whatever questions he had.

Things got much much worse before they got better. When I made the decision to hospitalize our son, DH could no longer have a hands off approach. He was forced into family counseling.

I wouldn’t say he could recite DSs meds off the top of his head but he knows there are medications, what they’re for, and when I send him to multiple pharmacies looking for Focalin, he doesn’t ask me why Incant do it anymore.

[Anonymous]

I do everything important and time sensitive.

My husband handles our one child’s routine eye appointments. I am pretty sure that they are not happening exactly on time but it seems ok.


I took over check ups because he waited so long it messed up other appointments. I ask him to take a child to specific therapy sessions. One child is a nightmare at the dentist’s and I take them. I make the appointment for my other child and sometimes my husband actually takes them.

[Anonymous]

We have a "manager/doer" relationship for medical.

I initiate calling doctors, getting on wait-lists, intakes, using the portal etc.

He will take kids to about 50% of the appointments, make follow-ups while he is there, pick up Rx, etc.

There are other areas in our life that he manages, so it all works out.

[Anonymous]

Yes, I deal with most of it. DH does submit OON claims to insurance, but if they get denied I'm the one that calls and works to fix the issue. DH also takes DD to the dentist and to one of her two weekly therapy appointments.

I take the lead on the administrative aspects of therapy and primary care. I find the therapists, communicate with the school about IEP services and accommodations and generally deal with scheduling.

One thing that has changed is DH has bought into the therapies. In the past he would hem and haw to try to stop them because it's not easy to take DD to them (and for us is relatively easy, just two appointments a week that we split). He was also very disengaged from the strategies the therapists recommended we implement at home. I think due to a lack of confidence. Now he is much more engaged and on board with that stuff. It helped to get a formal diagnosis and have the evaluator confirm the therapies are appropriate and supportive. With the administrative stuff the problem is DH gets overwhelmed with work and doesn't prioritize it so it never gets done.

[Anonymous]

I do all the coordination for medical care, research in therapists/resources, deal with the schools, etc. DH knows what’s going on and will sometimes take kids to appointments.

We both work full time but any ambition I once had is long gone- I am definitely mommy-tracked now. I have made my peace with it (mostly). When I tried harder to share the load of coordination I felt like I was continually monitoring what DH was doing and it wasn’t a good dynamic for our relationship.

[Anonymous]

I have always done it all as a SAHM. We have 3 kids (2 now in college 1 in HS). I scheduled all appointments, attended them, sought insurance coverage and reimbursement for them, handled all prescriptions (including tracking down stimulant meds), etc. This applied to everything: pediatrician, OT, speech, psychotherapy, ENT, neurologist, dentist, orthodontist, eye doctor, etc. I also handled all non-medical like homework, tutors, IEP/504, teacher conferences and school events. If I had it to do over again, I would never let it reach the point where 100% was on me. But at first it made sense when I was home and then more and more appointments creeped in. On the positive side, my kids benefited from the consistency but it’s just not fair to put all that mental labor on one parent. It prevented me from returning to work and created a very unhealthy dynamic.

[Anonymous]

This is me too but I would say that I was prevented from returning to work by DS's needs rather than the paperwork. My DH far outearned me so it sort of made sense but I have more of a medical background plus the time to research providers and therapies. DH handles the insurance and all our money management. Yes, it seems very 1950s but there is enough work for both of us.

[Anonymous]

I (mom) schedule all the appointments. Husband deals with insurance. We split the appointments based on our schedules, but he tends to takes the kids to the more routine ones, whereas I have been following particular issues for our older child so it makes more sense for me to deal with his specialists.

[Anonymous]

My husband handles dental for both kids, kid #1 developmental ped and kid #1 neurologist. We probably split sick and annual appointments for both kids fairly evenly — just depends on who is free. For kid #2, I handle special eye doctor and neurooncologist mostly. Back when she was actively having brain surgeries and chemo, we split stuff up and doubled up a lot.

I’m the primary earner and the health insurance is under me so I handle that part.

[Anonymous]

I do 99%, include all medical/therapy/evaluation appointments, insurance, IEP, scheduling, school volunteering, school, camp, classes & transportation. I report to him important things related to kids if needed for making decision. That's how it is, both DH & 2 kids have asd & adhd, high functioning. Don't mention that I work full time. He complains to me that I don't share parenting. When I give him task, I have to remind him days before, same day and text message or else he may forget about it. We both make decent money, and I use our earned money for kids' services.

[Anonymous]

I make doctors appointments and do a lot of the researching of specialists/therapies. I’m an educator and have more people to network with for recommendations for care providers. I almost always do initial visit. I also handle follow up communications and Rx. DH handles submitting to insurance and chasing reimbursements.

[Anonymous]

I do 100% of everything medical for myself and the kids. Appointments, insurance, prescriptions, etc. Everything. DH doesn't even know who the kids' doctors are. One kid has T1 so there's a lot of meds and insurance involved.

I'm a SAHM and I'm completely fine with the arrangement. DH also has ADHD and if I left any of it up to him it wouldn't get done when it needed to be done.

[Anonymous]

I (mom) do 100% for multiple kids with ADHD/anxiety/out of network therapy plus one DC with very complex medical issues since birth/specialists/surgeries/hospitalizations. I was SAHM in the beginning so it made sense. Now I juggle it with FT work. I don’t like it but can’t imagine handing it off especially with complex DC because I have all the historical knowledge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS has adhd and it's becoming more complex as he ages. In your household, is there a primary parent that deals with medical?

Please list your household situation and who manages medical and how it works.

I choose all providers. I decide on all care. I make all appointments. I schedule all vaccines. I mostly take kids to all appointments but if I’m not available my spouse will. And I take care of insurance.

We have a good balance in terms of sharing what it takes to make the household run well. We both stay in our own lanes. And we trust each other to take care of our share of the work.

We are a two parent household with three kids, two with special needs. One is pretty intense. In addition to medical I take care of all school and IEP stuff.