Our Journey To Get In To The Center for Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders

First time William saw a neurologist was 3 years ago.  After that Dr. Huy’s office recommended Center of Autism but the waiting time in average is 6 months; we sent in the application but they never call back.  Then Covid-19 hit.  I called about 3 months ago to follow up, the intake department said they got our application but they needed the latest IEP and tri-annual reports from school in order to transfer to scheduling department.  So I contacted Jefferson school; it was so hard to reach anyone there: I left several messages and no one called back.  One day I could get a hold of some one, she said because William just transferred to this school so they don’t have the reports; they faxed the request to William’s former school which is Lincoln school but they had not gotten any reply yet! So I called Lincoln school, Ms. Karen answered as always;  she said she did not receive any request from Jefferson!  I called Jefferson school again several times to ask if they can fax over the request 1 more time, no one answered!!

Ms. Karen was so nice to talk to Ms. Newman; Ms. Newman contacted me right away, however she said because William is no longer in this school so she cannot access William’s record anymore; but she still has the report ,so she sent to me! I was so happy that finally after 2 weeks of contacting Jefferson school with no hope, Ms. Newman came to rescue.  Finally I had the reports to email it to Center of Autism.

No word from the Intake department, I started to question if I sent to wrong email; so I called again.  The man said he got the report but it missing the evaluation from the school psychologist!  So I emailed Ms. Newman, Ms. Newman contacted Ms. Emily, Lincoln school psychologist; she had a copy of William in her computer so she emailed to me right away.   I can’t say how much I appreciated their time and willingness to help and response promptly.  Happily I email the Intake department the requested report with the hope that now we could make appointment to see a neurologist.  This time the Intake department replied back that they had all the reports they need, they would send our application to the scheduling department.

So I waited; no call from scheduling department; I emailed the Intake department, the man said “I forwarded your email the scheduling dept. they will contact you”.  Few days passed by, still no word from anyone!  So I called the Intake department (that’s the only number that I know), he transferred me to the scheduling department; I finally could make an appointment!

Frustrated? Of course!  I could not believe it’d take so much time and effort to finally get an appointment with a neurologist.  But now that we had one, William deserves to have all the treatments that he needs, that’s all that matters to me.

That would be  a zoom meeting with Elyse R Schoenwald, NP for 1 hour on 3/16/2021.

They told me to go to MyChart from https://my.ucihealth.org website to sign up; they’re using this site to manage all the appointments and reports.  It’s a very nice site.

Center for Autism & Neurodevelopmental Disorders (www.thecenter4autism.org)

2500 Red Hill Ave, Suite 100, Santa Ana, CA 92705
Phone: 1.949.267.0400
Fax: 1.949.221.0004
thecenter4autism@uci.edu
Intake Department:  Phone: (949)267-0447 Email: VelasCP1@hs.uci.edu Fax: (949)221-0053