Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Does this type of Psychologist exist?

Has anyone ever found a Psychologist that works with gifted children that DOES take behavioral health insurance? I'm finding this to be a nearly impossible task.

I've now printed the entire list of Psychologists in a 20 mile radius from our behavioral health website and am calling each one to see if they have any experience with gifted children. Those in my area that have gifted experience do NOT take insurance and charge an astronomical amount per session.

If there's a children's hospital near you, check there...

DeeDee

I'm not in your area but I lucked into one. She had just decided to take insurance - only applied for state benefits and our carrier - a couple of weeks before I called her. Totally a fluke. She is also a former school psychologist so knows the lingo and how to get the school to do what she wants. She understood DD and our situation right from the first phone call. A total gem for which we are very, very grateful. I wish you the same kind of luck.

p.s. I think DeeDee's advice is excellent.

Thank you. I will take a look at our local children's hospitals.

There are quite a few psychs that I have contacted that could describe my/our experiences without me telling them anything. But none of them take insurance. Which I seem to always forget to ask in all my excitement while talking to them on the phone. Then I have to call back, ask them if they take insurance, they say no, tell me their cash fee, and then I have to cancel.

Luckily we are working with the Institute for Educational Advancement and paying cash on a sliding scale. Their President sees us as our Gifted Psychologist until we can find one that takes our insurance.

We have a hard time finding doctors of any kind who take our insurance (Tricare, retired military), but the psychologist we took DS to over the last few years was in an "integrated health clinic" that had medical and behavioral doctors all in one group, and they took our insurance.

You might be able to find a place like that -- they are becoming more common. They go under the names of "integrated wellness" or sometimes "holistic" which doesn't mean what it used to mean. It used to mean "new age" or "hippie", but these days it's more about putting many aspects of health care under one roof.

I started with my insurance providers behavioral health website and did a search... there were lots of psychologists, psychiatrists and LPC's... I also found the Neuropsych that way. All covered by insurance.

This is what I've done. I printed out all of the covered Psychologists in a 20 mile radius and just started calling around to find out if they are experienced with gifted children and in what ways.

I've found that experience is thin out there.

However, we've found a number of good care providers. I show/describe to the psychologist my child's profile, and I listen to their responses and think about their follow up questions. I've hired the ones who instantly realize that my child is an outlier amongst outliers and that the issues are real. The ones I've hired immediately asked about the relevant issues -- friends, how the spiky profile shows itself, fit to the school environment, signs of depression, how anxiety exhibits itself in my child and in our situation, but were slow to leap to a diagnosis.

These are folks with PhDs. Even if they don't have a lot of professional experience, a lot of them have good instincts because they've lived it themselves and they've raised their own gifted children.

The interview process was lengthy. I took recommendations from trusted colleagues, and made a lot of phone calls. In the end, it paid off.

We've consulted with psychs, counselors, and our children have been through multiple therapies. I'll echo DeeDee's advice to look for a local children's hospital - ours has always been cooperative and helpful in billing insurance directly. Other private providers typically don't bill insurance (although our neuropsychologist does). *However* - that doesn't mean our insurance didn't cover the services, it just meant the provider wouldn't bill directly for us, and we had to submit the paperwork directly to our insurance company after the services were given. There were cases where our insurance company covered a certain type of service but said (in the policy) that we had to go through a preferred provider (this particularly occurred on our behavioral insurance policy), but we were able to have out-of-network providers after we'd written in and called the insurance company and explained what services we needed and why we needed to go out of network. And there were also services they simply didn't cover... but overall, if it was a service that the insurance company intended to be covered we were usually able to work something out so that insurance paid for it.

I'll also add that we've never worked with providers (either psychs or therapists) who specialize or have a ton of experience working with gifted children - we're in an area where there really aren't providers with a lot of that type of experience. We've had really good experiences in spite of that! The providers that have been the most helpful to our children are professionals who are really interested in our children, who like working with outside-the-box challenges or simply something different than what they usually see, they are able to develop a rapport with our kids, and most of all, are invested in helping our kids. IF we had the choice, sure, we'd like to consult with professionals who have expertise or who specialize in working with gifted children. We didn't have that choice, and it's been ok anyway - so don't give up!

Best wishes,

polarbear