Does your insurance cover genetic testing?
Many do. But often only in the case of high risk pregnancies or amniocentesis. If you want a diagnosis for your self or your already born child, it’s on your dime.
In other words, if you would like to consider terminating your pregnancy and not bringing a heavy user of insurance covered medicine into the world, the insurance companies are happy to help. If you might be looking for answers, which may result in greater medical expenses, the insurance company doesn’t want to help.
Left Brain Right Brain 
We’ve been fortunate with our military health insurance that genetic testing for my bright boy has been covered the three separate times it has been required (for fragile x twice; after his stroke 10 years ago, looking for the cause, and again this year to see if there were any additional genetic disorders -and there were). Because the conditions were hereditary, genetic testing was done on the whole family with the first discovery and was covered. However, all these genetic disorders deal with blood clotting and not autism.
We may have delays in being seen, short-term relationships with primary care managers, and often long waits, and a band-aid approach much of the time, but it’s usually no problem to get to a specialist if you insist, where those problems that might go unfound can be. But at least the insurance covered the 110 dollar a shot twice a day for my son for the month he was on short-acting heparin. Medicaid refused and not because we had the other insurance.
The health care system is a mess and for profit insurance companies are, in my opinion, bad things for individuals. But government run health care for the poor and the disabled is worse. The military is at least somewhere in the middle. I do not look forward to the day when my son ages out of the military coverage.
Its shocking that health and insurance will soon be linked. Health care should be for all and not on a sliding scale of cost.
Kim: I am guessing you are on Tricat (or whatever it is called these days). Will your son have to age out? I don’t know about military coverage, but for many other insurances, you may keep a disabled child on your coverage beyond the normal “age out” period as long as you provide documentation that the child falls under the requirements for disabled child. There may or may not be additional fees, but they are covered. If you haven’t already, look into it (the insurance companies don’t often tell you about this…)
Thanks, Dawn. Yes, we’re on tricare; my hope is that he’ll be able to stay on Tricare since we have guardianship over him and he remains our dependent. It is how it used to work, at least, and it’s something we’ll start to address as he hits that drop-off age, which is soon.