Originally Posted by Kriston
Originally Posted by DrH
As for traveling and paying 160/hour for a 8 hour test... well frankly I think they are just trying to make a bit more profit from you than they should. Any decent child psychologist should be able to recognize Aspergers and it shouldn't take 8 hours and 2 days of testing to do it.


Well, I know for a fact that Dr. Amend is so busy that he could easily turn away clients and suffer no ill effects to his business, so I feel very confident in saying that his interaction with Squirt is not some money-making scheme on his part.

Dr. Amend is VERY well-respected--a leader in the field of GT testing and counseling. He is just about the furthest thing from a snake-oil salesman that you're going to find!

I agree that it's possible that Dr. Amend could be more expert than is called for in this case, especially given the distance involved. (I don't have any idea if he *is* more than what's needed or not, but I can see that it might be possible.) But please, DrH, don't make sweeping negative judgements about a specific professional without having some idea who he is and what he does. I hate to see a good person's reputation smeared unfairly...

Stating that someone appears to be pushing for more testing than would likely be necessary isn't smearing anyone unfairly. Frankly I do not know Dr. Amend. So the question is what do you know about him that you hold him in such high regard? Unless you have a professional working relationship with him or any other doctor you really don't have a clue as to how good or bad a doctor is.

I'm quite sure that investors putting money in Mr. Madoff's investment fund thought he was an excellent fund manager... yet we know where that ended. If someone is charging $1,000 to change the oil in your car it doesn't mean they aren't doing a good job of changing the oil. They might do a fine job, but it doesn't mean that they aren't trying to make money and it doesn't mean that they aren't trying to charge as much as they can.

The only thing about Dr. Amend that would give me pause to use him would be his website. I would wonder why he has two offices in two different cities. I would wonder if he was actually doing all the testing and work or if he was having other do work for him. But if you believe he is a good doctor you have the right to that opinion. I don't know his work, so I can only say that it sounds like a rather excessive amount of testing and expense.