Team Jillian: Advocacy Group for Patients and Parents

Comment

Comment by Robin Benoit on October 26, 2011 at 5:53pm

Hi Amber,

Such a great question about insurance!  We could not get coverage for Jillian and I complained all the way to the top of our insurance company.  Our policy covered occupational therapy, physical therapy and even message therapy.  I am going to COVD's Annual Meeting on Friday and I hope to discuss this with the experts on site.  There has to be a way and we will figure it out.  Talk soon!

Comment by Amber Johnson on October 26, 2011 at 5:10pm

Do you have any advice for how to approach our insurance company? Vision therapy is not covered at all, so we've always paid completely out of pocket, $500 a month. While worth it, it's simply not right that this is the case. Do you have any tips for parents trying to change this, not only for their own child but to help bring change for all who need vision therapy but are turned off by the lack of coverage?

Comment by Robin Benoit on June 8, 2011 at 10:09am

Thanks, Amber.  I can't wait to read about all the changes you see in Stella as she continues to improve.  Jillian was much older, almost 10 when she started vision therapy, and she was able to share her "OMG" moments with me as they happened.  I remember her PE teacher calling me from school one day with tears in her voice.  She told me that Jillian suddenly realized the width of a soccer goal was much broader than she had thought and it was easier to kick a ball when she saw just one of them.  What would the cost have been to her personally to have had to go through life without the benefits of vision therapy?  Thankfully, we will never know.

 

I'm glad to connect with you, Amber.

Comment by Amber Johnson on June 8, 2011 at 12:03am

Robin, I loved your comment on the recent VisionHelp post about how vision therapy isn't actually that expensive. I am guilty of thinking that it is expensive, but now I realize that it's a deal--even if not covered by insurance! Seeing what it's done for Stella has put it all in perspective.

 

Thanks for your comment on my recent post about Stella's peripheral vision. And thanks to both you and Jillian for the support and inspiration!

Comment by Dr. Leonard J. Press on June 6, 2011 at 10:15am

Excellent point, Robin.  We each make value judgments about what is expensive.  If you have a chance, post your comment on the visionhelp blog, in which I highlighted one of my patients (Pamela Kohn) who wrote a nice perspective about what is more expensive: the cost of doing vision therapy, or the cost of not doing vision therapy.

Comment by Robin Benoit on June 6, 2011 at 9:39am

Dr. Press, I received an email this weekend from a mother complaining about the cost of VT for her son.  She was quite clear about the fact that she and her husband could not afford VT, but they would talk about it further next week as they were leaving for a week in the Bahamas.  

 

Dr. Hong, I can't believe you have a Robyn/Jillian combination!  I love that! 

Comment by Dr. Leonard J. Press on June 4, 2011 at 1:49pm

Dear Jillian and Robin - Thanks so much for starting this group!  It means so much when patients can talk directly to one another about how life altering VT can be, and what a wonderful return on investment.  Take a look at this blog piece, including the comments.

 

 

 

Comment by Carole L. Hong, OD, FCOVD on June 3, 2011 at 11:52am

Hi Jillian and Robin! Thanks so much for starting this group.  I've already told a ton of patients about you and now they have a place to easily find you!  I think we'll need to make some business cards with this URL or add it to our current cards.  Anyways, I have a silly thing to tell you...one of my patients, Robyn, came in with her little girl yesterday whose name was Jillian!

Comment by Pamela R. Happ on June 3, 2011 at 11:10am

Very cool! Let us know how it goes.

Comment by Robin Benoit on June 3, 2011 at 9:59am

Thanks for joining our group!  Jillian has an interview with a magazine in Canada next week.