Please, please recommend a developmental pediatrician

[Anonymous]

I have 15 month old twins that were born preemies. They are in PT right now. Due to budget cuts, they will lose PT at the end of the month and transfer over to speech. Our regular Ped thinks they are doing "great!' as does their PT. But, I have an older child and I know where a child should be at their age. They are nowhere near where they should be in many areas. They basically don't understand what is being said to them. No pointing, no words other than Mamma and Dadda. No imitations. Not walking, etc. They just seem off to me. I need a recommendation for a developmental ped who will really listen to my concerns and help us. Thank you all very much.

[Anonymous]

If you search the archives, you'll find many posts on this topic. Here's one:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/226652.page

You might also ask your pediatrician for a recommendation.

[Anonymous]

OP, we have been to KKI and friends have gone to children's for a devel ped. We now go to Karin Belsito and are happy with her.

[Anonymous]

Dr Dan Shapiro. He is wonderful. I can always email him with any concerns about my 4 yr old and he always gets back to me usually within the hour or two. Observes my kid at school and is available for IEP meetings.

[Anonymous]

I see Karin Belsito as well and she is great. But I would have gone to Dr. Dan Shapiro if he had been taking new patients when we moved here. I believe that he now takes very young patients. I am also a mom of preemie twins who are now 9. You are doing all of the right things and I believe that Dr. Dan will be able to connect you with the right therapists and other professionals to help you navigate. Good luck.

[Anonymous]

I'm the first poster who talked about Karin Belsito. I talked to Dr. Shapiro first. He takes only children up to age 4 and he periodically closes his practice to new patients (so you have to hit him at the right time really). He is the one who suggested Dr. Belsito for my 7 yr old.

[Anonymous]

OP here - thanks for the recs. Does your insurance cover these visits? From what I have looked into, our insurance (CIGNA) does not seem to have any dev. peds covered. If you pay out of pocket, about how much is it?? Any of these doctors in NOVA??? We live in Fairfax. Also, what is KKI??

[Anonymous]

KKI - Kennedy Krieger Institute. They are up in Baltimore, and for us, definitely worth the drive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm the first poster who talked about Karin Belsito. I talked to Dr. Shapiro first. He takes only children up to age 4 and he periodically closes his practice to new patients (so you have to hit him at the right time really). He is the one who suggested Dr. Belsito for my 7 yr old.

We also use Dr. Shapiro. It is my understanding that he will do consults with older children and their families, and will make appropriate referrals. He has strong relationships with other practitioners.

[Anonymous]

PP here. If your children are 15 months old, I would contact him. I don't think you'll find a better, more responsive practitioner in the area. The kind man emails me or calls me in response to my concerns, promptly.

[Anonymous]

We started working with Dr. Dan Shapiro when ds was 12 months old. He gave us great recs and really got us to increase the therapies we were doing and add some others. Ds is doing great now at 17 months and I think his therapy recs have really helped. He is super responsive by email, which I love and greatly appreciate, and even observed ds at his daycare. He isn't cheap and you pay up front, though we've been able to get a decent amount reimbursed by insurance. Even more importantly, he helped us get all of ds's private therapies practically 100% covered, and that's what we needed.

[Anonymous]

The only developmental pediatricians who are in-network for our insurance were at kennedy krieger in baltimore and childrens hospital. the childrens hospital waitlist for the fairfax office is "full" until 2013. They are scheduling appointments for the maryland office of childrens for fall 2012.

we don't have out of network coverage and the other developmental peds mentioned on this thread seemed to un about 1000 for an initial evaluation.

[Anonymous]

I believe Dr. Belsito is closer to $700/$800.

[Anonymous]

We see Dr. Gersh at Children's Hospital, Laurel Lakes. I recommend him and if the wait is many months, call all the time and keep telling them you will take a cancelled appointment. I got a next day appointment that way, when the wait was 7-8 months.

[Anonymous]

I am going to tell you not to call Dr. Conlon. Here's my experience:

We saw Dr. Conlon in November. We called and called and e-mailed and called for our report and never got anything back. Finally, he said that it had been so long since he saw our child, he needed to see him again (free of charge) in order to write the report.

So, we saw him again. After the appointment, he said he'd have something to us in two weeks. It's been over a month and we haven't even gotten a call back. His office hasn't even filed a claim with our insurance company so we can't get reimbursed.

He's great with our child, but for several hundred dollars, we need more than that.