This page contains answers to common questions, along with some tips that we have found useful. See www.ibc-pa.org for more information about our staff and their credentials, and review our standards for Behavioral Treatment Plans at www.treatmentplansthatworked.com.
How can you tell if your child is getting excellent services?
- Check the professional supervision & training of the actual treatment providers. Not the supervisors.
- Collaboration between professionals, teachers and parents is indispensable.
- Treatment plans include tested individualized interventions, time frames and goals, not “guesswork.”
- Progress Monitoring techniques categorically establish the “medical necessity” of prescribed services.
The five core values that support excellent treatment programs
- Tell the Truth — nothing else matters if this isn’t your – and your provider’s – top value and habit.
- Be Thankful — you and your treatment provider should be thankful for each other.
- Help Others — your provider should want (and be able) to prove that their efforts are helping.
- Share Fairly – you & your provider should fairly share the responsibility for helping your child.
- Move Forward — you & your provider should chart a course for the future that is positive and optimistic.
Excellent treatment providers exist within commuting distance in most communities, but the most successful practitioners often don’t advertise because they have more work than they can manage. This is where OurCaseManager.pro comes in. We can help any provider of treatment services work more efficiently and effectively. We’ll help them develop better treatment plans and more effective treatment outcome monitoring strategies that can be enormously helpful in terms of getting and keeping funding for necessary treatment. With our help, their treatment plans will be better. With our help, your child’s IEP will be better. Together, we can help your child receive the best possible services from any of the providers in your local community who will work with you to accomplish those goals.
Why doesn’t the government regulate the practices of professionals more carefully?
Government officials have to answer to lots of authorities. The 10th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits the Federal government from meddling in the affairs of State governments, so Federal government officials can’t dictate what state governments can and can’t allow licensed professionals do. Federal authorities can create broad laws, like the Social Security Act, Medicaid, EPSDT and other sources of treatment funding for children, but the Federal courts have to get involved on behalf of US citizens who bring actions against the State when the State is not doing what it’s supposed to do under Federal laws. Although it feels wrong, State and other government officials are often more lenient toward some professionals than others, but government officials usually don’t want to jeopardize statewide Federal funding under Medicaid, or incur fines and penalties, so they usually respond favorably to challenges that would clearly be decided against them (based on precedents set in similar matters in comparable jurisdictions).
We know what many of those precedents are, how to present information that references them, and how to frame arguments that may be more compelling on your child’s behalf to State and other government authorities and the Managed Care Organizations with which they contract. We are not lawyers, and do not offer legal advice, but we do know how current laws governing the funding of treatment for children with special education and mental illness symptoms (including children with Autism spectrum disorders) are being implemented throughout America. In at least 37 states, behavioral treatment for disabled children is available through Medicaid at absolutely no cost to parents, regardless of family income!
Who sets the standards that you are promoting?
We do. Our standards for the supervision and training of unlicensed behavior support staff are higher than those that exist anywhere else in America. Most states permit psychiatrists to operate community mental health treatment centers, but set no requirements for the psychiatrist to personally supervise the treatment providers. That responsibility is often shifted to others, including social workers, who report to the psychiatrist periodically or occasionally. Our staff are accustomed to completing diagnostic evaluation reports that address dozens of aspects of a child’s functioning from a life-domain bio-psycho-social perspective, and typically consist of 15 or more pages. Our Masters-level mental health professionals meet personally with licensed psychologists for at least 1 hour each week and can consult any of these psychologists at a moment’s notice in emergencies. Our psychologists all have decades of professional experience, and our director is also a certified school psychologist with more than 30 years of professional experience. You can watch a brief video of our director’s vision for OurCaseManager.pro which was introduced at the Autism Society of America’s Phoenix chapter as “The Issachar Project.”
What is the cost of these services?
The cost of a one-hour consultation with an OurCaseManager.pro staff is $100. We will pro-rate this cost rounded down to the nearest quarter-hour. Our services are always “at your request” and never include hidden charges. For example, if you request help with the review of an Individual Education Plan (IEP), or a Behavior Treatment Plan, we will ask you to mail or fax the document to our office in Pennsylvania. Depending upon the complexity of the document and the issues you are concerned about, we will propose a reasonable amount of time to complete our review, write a summary (no more than 1 hour for this), and provide up to one hour of follow-up consultation with you. You are free to stop the process at any time. If you are satisfied that you are receiving valuable information, we can continue to provide input and charge our standard hourly fee. You may request as much help as you need to fix problems and revise the documents to meet national standards for compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) for Individual Education Plans, or our standards for Behavioral Treatment Plans.
You can visit www.ibc-pa.org for more information about the experience and training of the professionals who provide services through OurCaseManager.pro
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