Today Monday 3/19/2018 William had first session with TasKids staffs after about 3 weeks with no sessions at home.
The supervisor Huy Dang and BT Aaron were scheduled to be at our home from 5:45 – 7:45 but Aaron was sicked so he cancelled. The supervisor Huy Dang came and stayed for about 1 hour and then left.
William came close to Mr. Huy and sat next to him. Huy was so surprised because this is the first time they met but William acted like they’re close.
Today, Friday, is the last day William has the session at the day care with ABEST; Ms. Tracy is the BT today. Today concludes 9 months of receiving services from ABEST. I’d say we’re very pleased with the services that ABEST provided; I’m really sad that all the good staffs left and that we have no choice to find a new vendor.
Saying good bye to the people that we love is always hard. I waited on Thursday at the day care to see Ms. Han to say good bye to her; I prepared to express our appreciation to her but when I saw her, just the thought of not seeing her again brought tears to my eyes so all I could say was “Thank You Em” while giving her a hug and then I turned around to get back into my car. I sat there an watched her walking thru the side door of the school to get into William’s classroom. Ms. Han replied “I like William a lot!”.
I wish that we have some pictures of William and all ABEST staffs but with school policy of no photos/videos, we don’t have any pictures at all. Monday 3/12/2018 Ms. Nhu will come to pick up the binder; and that will be the last person from ABEST that we see.
Tuesday 12:00 PM. Today we met Staphanie again; Kristie was not there. William first got to play with Play Doh and make snow man. He requested to make snow man about 3 times. Then Stephanie got out the little house, bed, doll, pillow, blanket, bathtub, table, chair, etc. and asked: where does the bed go? can you put the baby to sleep, what do we do with the bathtub? William especially liked the pillow and blankets, he put the blanket over the doll.
All the time I thought the play house is for girls, never thought a boy can also learn from it.
Now that ABEST doesn’t have staffs for William at home; we’re looking for the new vendor. I searched Google , picked 2 from the list and called them; left them (CARD) a voice message, few days past with no return calls from them.
Tues 3/6/2018. Called Cal Optima to check on the status; the lady said it’s in PENDING status, which means it’s not being reviewed yet; and that I should call back in a few days to check. I already told ABEST that the last day of their service is Fri 3/9; looks like it takes a while for CalOptima to process our switching vendor request; which means the approval for TasKids to start service might not arrive next week. So William might not have any ABA services at all (home or day care) until TasKids receives the authorization from Cal Optima.
12:00 PM at Providence Hearing and Speech center. Today Stephanie used a book and asked William to identify the object (while Ms. Kristie worked at her desk); he could answer most of them. Some questions like “Whose food is this?” William did not understand. 30 minutes passed by really fast.
Today Thursday is the last session with Selestie, which is also the last session with ABEST at home because they don’t have any available staffs for us.
So until we can successfully switch to the new vendor, William will not have any ABA sessions at home. At the day care Ms. Han and Ms. Tracy still continue to be there until the last day of service with ABEST, which we don’t know when yet.
I’m really sad that our relationship with ABEST is about to end. They had a great team for William case but they lost it. I’m worried that the team at the new vendor will not be as good; but I guess we have no choice now. We can’t just wait for ABEST to find new staffs; and there’s no guarantee that the new staffs are good either.
Tuesday 12:00 PM. Took William to his second session of Speech Therapy at Providence Hearing and Speech Center in Fountain Valley. The session was only 30 minutes, the first 20 minutes was in the room, the next 5 minutes was in the gym and the last 5 minutes was for the therapist to take notes (which means we left after the gym, which was about 12:25 PM).
When we got in the room, Ms. Kristy let him sat in the small chair and buckled him up (so that he doesn’t run around). She taught him the concept of TOP and UNDER. Also, he had to ask for things “I NEED ….”. She also introduced the functionality of things “What does it do?”, “An airplane fly”…
William tried to unbuckle the straps a few times but could not.
When in the gym, William had to ask for things he wanted to play “I want swing”, etc.
Wednesday morning. It’s Valentine’s day but it’s also a sad day for us. Ms. Nhu called me around 10:00 AM and delivered the bad news that Kevin (the supervisor) already left the company this week, Annie (who was William’s Behavorial Technician from the beginning and now that she’s promoted to supervisor, she has been parent training Tim for about 2 months) is also leaving the company end of this month. It’s getting worse when I was told Ms. Selestie who has been William’s BT for every night at home for the past 3 months also thinking about leaving too. Which means the team that we love so much is about to leave us soon; and the worse news is that ABEST doesn’t have any available staffs to teach William at home. One thing I’m glad is that Ms. Han and Tracy will still be with William at the day care from 2:00 – 5:00 pm.
Ms. Nhu also said that it’s ok if I want to look for another vendor; and I should look soon before July. Because after July, RCOC will transfer all the cases to CalOptima, then it’s gonna be harder to find a vendor.
I cried when I heard the news while still on the phone with her. I just love every one in this team so much, they’re all good teachers to William; and my boy has learned so much from them. It’s heart breaking to see such a good team falling apart.
I also felt bad for Ms. Nhu, she’s a very dedicated and passionate about this work. It’s a small company so she handles everything from recruiting to billing and doing paperwork. It must be tough for her that 3 staffs are leaving at the same time. Because of her I decided to stay and wait until she can find a new BT for William.
Thursday 2/15/2018. Evening session with BT Selestie at home as usual.
Ms. Selestie told me to keep this as a secret that Ms. Nhu also is leaving the company in 2 months! I was so shock; I just simply thought it’s the staffs that are leaving; never thought the company is not doing well. Not sure what the reason is but Ms. Nhu is 1 of the most important person in the company; and if she leaves, there’s no one else can run the company. Once again I felt sad for Ms. Nhu; she invested lots of her time and energy into this company; she must feel really bad. I always admire her passion about helping children with autism; that’s why she opened this company with hoping that she can do better than other companies. I wish I could do something to help her and bring the company back.
William of today is totally different than William of 8 months ago. Thanks to all wonderful BTs from ABEST that William has progressed so much at the rate that everyone is amazed; especially Ms. Han and Annie who have been there with William from the beginning. 8 months sounds like a long time but to us it’s not that long. I really missed those days when there were times 3 or even 4 staffs came to our house at once. I still remembered we talked and laughed.
I’d like to list the name of all ABEST staffs here so that I won’t forget:
Ms. Nhu, Ms. Nhi, Ms. Jody, Ms. Annie, Ms. Han, Ms. Selestie, Ms. Tracy (she just started with William for 2 weeks), Mr. Kevin (supervisor).
It’s so hard to say goodbye!
Tues 1/3/2018
For the past month we could not get medication for William; when we came to the pharmacy, their system shows Williams has active coverage with Anthem BlueCross thus they cannot use Medi-cal. The billing lady at the doctor office told us the same thing.
I was so surprised because we requested to remove William out of Tim’s policy few months back when we got Medi-cal. So I had Tim to talk to his HR again. Not sure if they did not do it that time or it just took that long to be effective. Finally it shows up as in-active at Anthem web site on Dec, with the Ended Date is 11/1/2017.
I thought the Medi-cal system would update automatically so I gave it 2 weeks to come to the pharmacy again; and guess what? The status is still active!
So I called Cal-Optima, they said I have to send in the Termination Letter from Anthem before they can TEMPORARILY REMOVE William’s insurance so that I can get medication for William; but this is just temporary. To PERMANENTLY remove insurance, we need to contact Social Service.
So I called Ms. Juliana from Medi-Cal office; she was our Medi-cal case manager. She said that we no longer have a specific case worker, we need call the Medi-cal number.
So I called the Medi-Cal number Ms. Juliana provided (waiting time was 1 hour, I left the phone number and they called back). The lady temporarily remove William’s insurance so that we can get medication for William but she said that we still need to send in the termination letter from Anthem so that it can be permanently removed. She said the system gets updated by the State so she has no control over it. She removed it temporarily but the state will put it back unless it’s permanently updated by the state.
Later in the evening, I asked the pharmacy, and they said the system is still not updated!
Thursday 1/4/2018
8:10 AM We called Anthem requesting the termination letter. It took about 20 minutes, finally I got the letter sent to me via email. It’s a 2 step authentication process to open the pdf file: From the email, clicking on the link to register (name, email, password, etc. ) then it’d load the pdf file after account is created. When opening the file it’d ask for password, which is given to me by the Anthem rep. It’s Anthem1234.
12:00 PM I came to Staples to fax the termination letter to Cal Optima and Medical. I tried both fax numbers given to me by the lady at the Medi-cal but they all failed. So I went to Medi-cal website to get a fax number and faxed to that. I also faxed to CalOptima.
Friday 1/5/2018
10 AM I called CalOptima, it took 15 minutes for the rep to find our fax; then she said she temporarily update the system so that William can get his medication.
12:00 PM I came to the Social Security office because no-one from Medi-cal office returned my call. The front desk said for this I need to see a case worker; so I waited for 1 hour and 10 minutes to see one. His name is Alex. He checked the system and said that the system was still not updated! I was so disappointed because I just talked to CalOptima 2 hours ago, and she assured me that it was temporarily updated. At this point, I really felt that I can’t trust what people say anymore.
Alex said he would email Sacramento and once they receive the email, they’d process it within 24 hours, which means by Tuesday the system should be updated. He also said he’d try to see if he can temporarily remove the insurance; he’d call me in 30 minutes to let me know.
So I went back to work; Half hour later Alex called and said that he was able to remove BlueCross insurance temporarily.
Monday 1/8/2018
A case worker returned my call! She confirmed that BlueCross doesn’t show up in the state system anymore. I called CalOptima to confirm, Molly said the same thing.
Tues 1/9/2018
So I asked our pharmacist to check, he still could not bill Medi-cal!
5:00 PM. I called CalOptima, talked to Molly again; and she still said the same thing. William’s record only shows United Care Group which is the group that I selected from Cal-Optima.
So at this point I really don’t know what else to do. Everyone from Medi-cal and CalOptima said there’s no private insurance in William record but the pharmacist still cannot bill Medi-cal; which means I still cannot get medication for my son. Unbelievable!
The pharmacist suggested that we call United Care Group.
Fri 2/2/2018
I called Cal-Optima, they confirmed that the BlueCross Health Insurance is no longer listed in the system. I’m so happy that this is finally taken care of.
Morning Day 2 of the New Year, 2018; I have to work so I took William to Children World Preschool (Mitchell school is still on break until Jan 8, 2018 so William will spend his time at the day care full day this whole week).
ABEST still have not received the authorization from Cal-Optima for William’s ABA services yet so there won’t be any Behavioral Technician coming to the daycare for William. 2 months contract with Magellan has ended on 12/31/2017 so ABEST is waiting for the new contract from Cal-Optima because Magellan is not handling ABA services anymore as of 1/1/2018. If ABEST doesn’t receive the new contract soon, William will no longer receive any ABA services at the day care; However the sessions at home is still on.
I hope ABEST will receive the new contract soon; otherwise William will spend the whole day at the daycare without any BT to help him.