Stixrud - ISO recent reviews/recommendations

[Anonymous]

DC’s psychiatrist recommended Stixrud for neuropsych testing. DC is a teen and twice-exceptional (gifted, anxiety, treatment-resistant depression, ADHD). May not be able to graduate high school on time.

DC has never had any formal testing aside from psycho-educational before starting elementary school. Hoping to get some data and insight into issues to help DC move forward.

I’ve searched for and read old posts on Stixrud already, and am looking for reviews of recent experiences with them. I’d appreciate specific names of staff that did a particularly good job of testing and/or explaining the results.

Any advice about how to handle insurance (we have Carefirst BlueChoice Advantage POS) would be helpful as well. Focus is primarily for medical purposes, not educational, but we are open to what the neuropsych recommends in terms of testing.

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous]

We just used Stixrud a few months ago for comprehensive neuropsych (mostly Yael Rothman) and were happy with the experience. She did a nice job of getting full buy-in from our child who was rather reluctant to engage and we were happy with explanations of the results.

Related to insurance - I can't comment on your specific insurance. Assuming Stixrud is out of network for you, it would be a good idea to call your insurance in advance and understand whether comprehensive neuropsych testing requires pre-authorization (and getting pre-authorization if needed). I believe Stixrud gave us a list of CPT codes they'd be billing in advance, and at least my insurance company was able to tell us the exact reimbursement rate in advance (roughly half). Of course, after telling us no pre-authorization was required, our company still tried to deny our claim but relented with some follow up.

[Anonymous]

We also recently used dr Rothman. She’s absolutely amazing.

We have BCBS Federal and got reimbursed about $795 for $3,989. BCBS is notorious for low out of network reimbursement.

[Anonymous]

Thank you so much PPs for the info and recommendation of Dr. Rothman — very helpful. Also appreciate the insurance advice.

To the PP with BCBS Federal, was your testing more psycho- educational or medical? Hoping to get more $ reimbursed for medical — the amount of reimbursement you quoted was lower than I had hoped.

Thanks again

[Anonymous]

OP, BCBS federal poster here. The full neuropsych includes educational. BCBS did not cover anything out of the educational part. The reimbursement was based on the psychology related items.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We also recently used dr Rothman. She’s absolutely amazing.

We have BCBS Federal and got reimbursed about $795 for $3,989. BCBS is notorious for low out of network reimbursement.

Dr. Rothman was just recommended to us for anxious possibly Adhd child. Can you elaborate on why you think it was worthwhile? We’re having some sticker shock and haven’t moved forward .

[Anonymous]

NP. We used Stixrud recently and paid totally out of pocket. We have FCPS Basic. We knew that we would not be reimbursed going in and chose to pay rather than go through Children's or KKI.

We saw Dr. Henderson and she confirmed some things about DC that we knew and told us quite a few things that we didn't already know. She also gave us a road map for what we should be doing as well as for the school, although we've tabled that until school returns more normally or if needed earlier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We also recently used dr Rothman. She’s absolutely amazing.

We have BCBS Federal and got reimbursed about $795 for $3,989. BCBS is notorious for low out of network reimbursement.

Dr. Rothman was just recommended to us for anxious possibly Adhd child. Can you elaborate on why you think it was worthwhile? We’re having some sticker shock and haven’t moved forward .

It is quite a sticker shock but at the end of the day, it allowed us to identify what was going on (some we did, some we didn’t) know where her struggles really were, as well as, know exactly how to approach it. My child was masking his dyslexia effectively and we wouldn’t have known this but for the testing. In addition, it’s not a one time deal and she’s gone, Dr Rothman truly goes out of the way in trying to help your DC. For us it was helping with the IEP services first and then, when we decided that private was a better route, helping us understand based on our child’s profile, what might be a good fit.

Finally, she really goes the extra mile. Our child’s needs were the guiding principle and she was always available to answer additional questions. She does go above and beyond. For us, it was worth every penny to know exactly what was going on, how to help our DC and have an exceptional professional advocating for our child’s needs.

[Anonymous]

we had a good recent experience w Dr. Jenkins. Insurance reimbursed quite a bit but this depends on the policy. They give you all info needed to determine what your reimbursement would be.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for all the helpful replies. I filled out the form online and am waiting to be contacted by Stuxrud for an initial phone appointment.

DC’s therapist mentioned wait times for testing can be very long. About how long did you have to wait for a testing appointment? Was it significantly longer if you requested a particular doctor (e.g. Dr. Yael Rothman)?

Trying to get an idea if we are looking at waiting a few months or much longer.

Thank you

[Anonymous]

We waited about 2 weeks for phone appt and 4 months for testing.

Compare that to children’s. I waited a month to get a phone call, just so they’d tell me that I needed to wait for another call to set up testing. They called me six months later, after I was done with testing at stixrud just to set up the appt. They were scheduling a year out.

[Anonymous]

Thanks, PP — good to know that the timeline can vary widely.

Stixrud informed me that currently they are scheduling testing into the summer (July).

[Anonymous]

With the pandemic I cant comment on wait times. I will say though that you should note the different doctors all have different prices!

[Anonymous]

Childrens is in network for federal insurance. Although there may be a wait, they are great.

[Anonymous]

We paid for Stixrud and it was totally worth it. The testing revealed sides of my kid I never would have known--slow processing speed and autism, in particular. It was mind-blowing to me that the testing showed my kid could not read facial expressions. Seeing how my kid could not copy a complicated shape was also illuminating. I never would have guessed all that. They have us an evaluation that was very detailed and that also had strong recommendations for school accommodations (such as avoiding timed tests) and therapy (to improve specific social skills) that we were able to put right into an IEP and take action on. I think we had Rothman. They also did a presentation to our kid on the results that was good as it was very matter-of-fact and explored both strengths and weaknesses that I think was empowering for our kid in terms of helping him to conceptualize what he is great at and what he needs to work on. They did that for my 10 year old so surely they'd do something similar for a teen.