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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

[b]Money is fueling the rise in diagnosis[/b], plain and simple. If a doctor codes it as autism, insurance pays. In some states, it's like a golden ticket to services. If they don't, all those therapists out there don't make money. And parents curtail getting speech therapy, OT, and certainly ABA because the costs become overwhelming. So parents take a diagnosis they don't agree with because it gets their child some therapy.

But there's a very dark side to accepting an inaccurate diagnosis just to get services. Would you, for example, accept a cognitive impairment diagnosis for a child who is not cognitively impaired?  Because hey, they'll pay for services then!

You want a differential diagnosis, OP. That puts EVERY diagnosis on the table, as opposed to using a checklist to just confirm their preconceived notions. [/quote]

OP here. I do agree that I don't care what the label is AS LONG as it's accurate. Whatever it is will clearly be something she will have to deal with her whole life, so whether it's X, Y or Z doesn't particularly matter to me as long as we know what it is and how to help her with that. But how can you really know? I'm not a doctor, let alone a neuropsychologist who studies ASD. So if my gut tells me my child doesn't have ASD, but they say she does, how do I know if one of us is mistaken? Don't you kind of just have to take their diagnosis at face value and work with that? [/quote]

OP, please don't buy into this paranoia.  Doctors aren't receiving kickbacks for autism diagnoses.  (Wakefield lost his medical license.)  An autism diagnosis might help kids connect to services but developmental pediatricians, psychologists, and psychiatrists are evaluating a child as an individual.  There are many tests.  Sometimes it's not clear cut; sometimes you get conflicting diagnoses, but medical professionals can give you an independent evaluation.

If a professional works for the public school, it might be a different matter b/c they tend to funnel kids under autism b/c of how vaguely FAPE is written.  If your kid should happen to receive services under this designation; it's not the same thing as a medical diagnosis.  There is no shame in getting services--regardless of what designation under which it falls.  Insurances in general have been more generous with providing reimbursement for certain services for ASD diagnoses than not, but it's primarily b/c autism is considered a medical diagnosis.  They won't reimburse for things like dyslexia for example b/c it's not a "medical need."

But it's not a grand conspiracy between developmental pediatricians and insurers.  (That's coming from a parent who's kid was diagnosed as Autistic and insists that it's MERLD.)[/quote]

It's not paranoia  -- it's a fact of life that diagnosis follows the money trail. Developmental pediatricians often just give an autism label with very little testing. I know multiple people this has happened to -- and the peds tend to think they are doing the parents a favor, because with the ASD dx brings insurance coverage.

When money is involved, no grand conspiracy is needed. Most everyone is incentivized to go on the path that gets money for services for the child.

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