Reply to CAAT vs. Mindwell neuropsych eval

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A private pay “full neuropsych” is rarely necessary and often a waste of money that could be better spent on therapy or childcare. We got all we needed with school educational testing and testing covered by insurance. The exception could be if there was a suspected learning disability, but even then, the answer is a focused set of tests for that and not a full battery that takes 2 days and costs $7k.

If these “full neuropsychs” that they charge so much money for came bundled with say 5-10 hours of additional support to liaise with schools, advise on IEP, or provide some home-based guidance for parents (eg setting up study habits, discipline plans) then it might be a better value proposition. But places like CAAT also want you to pay $300/hr for that. [/quote]

Clearly many of us disagree with you on the value of a full neuropsych.[/quote]

yes, this board has a clear bias towards throwing a lot of money at providers who are happy to take the money. I think it is important for families that are not made of money to understand the limits of a “full neuropsych” instead of feeling that they are doing something wrong by not paying for it. It’s rarely necessary to do and can cost as much as a full course of therapy that actually does help your kid materially.

I have brdt and have the credit card bills to prove it. [/quote]

The amount we paid for a well written report from CAAT was low compared with the amount of time and expertise it takes to write a document like that (in addition to the hours they are paid to actually do the testing).

We can debate whether it is actually necessary for any given child. Tbf we have an excellent insurance plan that reimbursed us for most of the cost, so my perspective may be different than that of someone who ate the total cost. We found the report and recommendations to be worth their weight in gold.

But this notion that providers who do write a detailed, accurate and custom report for a child are somehow being unethical or getting paid too much is a little ridiculous. [/quote]

if you didn’t pay that much for it, that’s great. Others would be paying $5k-$6k. I have really good insurance and it would only pay a small fraction of that.

I have in fact run into unethical billing practices in this space before - not sure why that is so surprising. But beyond that, yeah, I do find it unethical not to keep in mind that SN families are often stretched financially already and help them distinguish between the services that will be most impactful. keep in mind that these practices are offering something that most people can get *for free* from schools as part of the IEP by psychologists equally trained doing a lot of the same testing …. [/quote]

That is great you were able to get that testing for free from the schools. I have friends that got that as well which is fantastic. However, with my child's case waiting for her behavior get bad enough for them to care was going to mean a very long wait to understand what is really going on.

Every situation is different. And by the way, for those of us who have submitted for reimbursement from insurance, I completely understand why providers don't take insurance. I understand why people who get evals from providers that take insurance sometimes complain that the report was clearly filled in from a template and not always accurate. You get what you/insurance pay for.[/quote]

yes the providers who charge $$$ want you to think it is worth it, but I saw very little difference between our school testing and insurance-covered testing. At the end of the day they are standardized, normed instruments so I do not actually think there is something magic about CAAT vs the school psychologist.

I’m sorry you were not able to get school based testing. I had no issues getting the IEP testing done and our main issue was behavioral. A battle with the school could be one reason to invest in a private assessment but I think the money is likely better spent on a great consultant who can make the case with the school. [/quote]

You don't know our child. Our situation is not like yours. Battling with the school was not our goal nor would it help our child. Hiring a consultant to "make a case" to the school would be ridiculous in our case. People have different situations. And what I observe is that we benefited from getting a diagnosis earlier than people I personally know that relied on school-funded testing. How much of a difference that has made I don't know, I think we are all on similar journeys. All I can say is the specific advice we got from CAAT has been extremely helpful to us.

Btw, CAAT said absolutely nothing to us to sell their services to us. They were recommended to us by another provider (who recommended several practices). When we called CAAT, there was a wait for most of the evaluators. It didn't sound like they need to do any marketing at all much less try to convince people it is worth it to pay them vs others.[/quote]

Nobody needs a $7k private neuropsychologist exam to get a diagnosis. We got a diagnosis at an insurance covered exam later reaffirmed by school. If you needed something immediate then you can get a more limited assessment.  If your child didn’t need any school supports I’m confused what you were doing anyway? [/quote]

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