Covered, just not for autism

Kimberly Acevedo

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Dory Hubbard has spent the last four years using the family’s savings and tax refunds to pay for her son Carson’s biomedical treatments. Hubbard and her husband Kevin have recently resorted to using unconventional methods to help alleviate their financial strain. After much research, Hubbard has used micro-loans and grant money to help pay for her son’s biomedical therapy.

“The cost has been a few thousand dollars over the past four years,” Hubbard of Winter Haven, Fla., says. “We don’t go on vacation very much. We have to be more careful with what we spend. We try to live on a cash basis so we know that we have money available for his expenses. The grants came in really handy. They aren’t taxable and they really helped us out a lot.”

Along with many parents who are using biomedical treatments and therapies, Hubbard says, these treatments and therapies are very beneficial to their children but are also very costly. Health insurance companies, she says, list these treatments as experimental and don’t cover them in regards to autism. Hubbard follows a strict gluten-free, casein-free diet, supplements and prescriptions for Carson, who is now 8-years-old and was formally diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome at 6.

Since working with DAN! (Defeat Autism Now!) doctors in Tampa, Fla., Carson has made tremendous improvement, Hubbard says. With Tampa about an hour’s drive away, it’s not always easy to make frequent doctor’s appointments. She takes Carson to visit the doctors once every few months or they do telephone consultations if their schedule doesn’t allow for the travel time. Both Hubbard andher husband administer all of Carson’s supplements and medications. They also do some of the testing at home with kits sent from the doctor’s office.

“Carson has responded fantastically to biomedical therapies,” she says. “His behavior has improved; he’s more aware; he has better communication. He always had language, but now he’s using it more effectively. There have been so many changes. I’m convinced if we hadn’t gone down this road, he would still be sickly, unhappy and not able to enjoy his life.”

Eventually, Hubbard wants to expand Carson’s biomedical therapies by getting a hyperbaric chamber for him at home since they aren’t able to travel to Tampa for daily treatments. Of all the biomedical therapies that Carson undergoes, only one prescription is covered by Hubbard’s medical insurance company, Aetna. And, she says, they only cover that prescription because it’s considered mainstream. All of the other therapies and treatments, she adds, are considered alternative or experimental in relation to autism.

Translation: Biomedical treatments, in regards to autism, are not covered by health insurance companies because there is no scientific evidence to support them as effective treatments.

“There are no traditional therapies for Asperger’s as far as I’m concerned,” Hubbard says. “DAN! doctors know about unconventional therapies that conventional doctors don’t know about. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of research being done because it’s hard to get funding for the research. That keeps it out of the mainstream. Conventional doctors don’t want to work with you if it’s not scientifically proven. It’s just a cycle that goes around and round.”

Courtesy Spectrum Publications