Most of the time the people that work with my kids are awesome. We have never had a problem with anyone really until now. I don't think I have ever been as angry as I am now.
Ok rewind to Dec 30th, our daughter Haley (8) and son Ty (7) receive services from a home health aide agency a total of 28hrs per week that is the max allowed. Now this has been happening for almost a year. I get our mail and while their aide is here (who by the way is awesome and is amazing with both the kids and Haley loves her) I get a letter from this agency. I don't think much of it till I open it and it states that as of Jan 1st they are discontinuing services for both because their contract with our insurance company has not been renewed. Seriously???!!! Do you people not own a phone!!! (they did however put a phone number in the letter of another agency I could call to transfer them to that is I guess a sister company of theirs) I was needless to say pissed because since Haley can not speak her aide was like an extension of her if she needed something and couldn't wait she would go to her and "show" her what she needed. This helped tremendously with the meltdowns and self injury because her frustration went down since she didn't have to wait on me to be able to help her. (if I am changing Ty or doing laundry etc I can't just drop Ty back into it to get Haley her milk right away) I called the number they gave me the next day at what I assumed was the start of the business day 8:15 only to be told it was an on-call number and then I was yelled at and hung up on. Well I am the wrong person you want to piss off at 8 in the morning. After some phone calls I am told that our insurance had terminated the contract with them and that the new company has their info and that they are suppose to be out in a few days to do an intake on the kids. I then get a call from their insurance case worker who looks things up and is confused because a claim was filed by the company at the end of November but something was wrong with it and when they tried to reach them to clear it up they never contacted them back and now magically the contract is ended. Hmmmmmm. Ok. So she also call them and says they are suppose to come out. Awesome so I wait.
So after three days of waiting I call the new company and talk with them. They say oh, yes we have the scripts and stuff but we are waiting on paperwork from their doc she was out of town............. Uh ok well we are going to see her tomorrow so I can guarantee you will have it. I then ask the most important question do we keep the same aide or not since they are a sister company and are owned by the same people. Their answer SURE it is not a problem give us her name and we will talk to her! YES awesome WAHOO!!!! Next day we go to their doc, I ask about the papers she says yes I got them but they didn't send me the right papers and they never sent me ones for Ty at all so I had to call them and have them send me the right ones and ones for Ty................well thats just peachy.
Next morning I call them and say you have the papers no when are you coming out? Ummm well we have them but your aide doesn't want to work with your kids anymore so we have to find staff....................HUH???!!!!!!!!!! (now I am super pissed because I have talked with their aide and she does want to work with them so I am very confused) So I call their aide and she confirms what I suspect no one has called her at all to ask anything. I call their caseworker again and she calls them, she gets the run around for a few hours then calls me back. She says that first the company had said they found a way to bill the insurance then they didn't , then the aide didn't want to work for both companies (but they are the same one), etc etc etc I cant even keep it all straight anymore. It ends up being they send her aide back over the weekend to help and a couple days during the week until the new company can come out. Ok great. Now today after hear aide leaves I get the message (from her aide not the company) that she was suppose to come tomorrow but since they are doing intake tomorrow the company is just not going to send her out...............
Nothing from the company, no call telling me she isn't coming (they obviously know), no one from the new company is coming just nothing. So again Haley is just without one.
Now normally I do not rant and rave but in my opinion if you are providing health care and especially this type of care and I am suppose to trust you with my children (and my children don't speak and they can't tell me what is going on or what you do to them) shouldn't your company represent itself better than that? I am suppose to be able to trust whoever I talk with on the phone. I don't know who that person is it could be a secretary or the manager of the whole building for all I know and for me, my caseworker and their insurance company to be lied to and lead around is (in my opinion) wrong. Now I know Haley does not have a life threatening illness or condition but that does not me she deserves any less care than anyone else. Just because their needs are different doesn't mean you get to treat her and Ty like they don't matter. We have worked hard with both of them to make the progress we have and my husband and I both have the concern that she will regress because of this change and the way it was handled. To get anyone to listen to that unfortunately doesn't seem to be working. I am incredibly disappointed with both of these companies and how they are handling this and am seriously considering using neither and trying to find some other company in our area that will take children (it took a year last time to find one). I really hope they aren't doing this to everyone.
