Peds Need to Get With the Alternative Program

I came home from the pediatrician’s office with with a container of probiotics in my purse, plans to bring Max back for food sensitivity testing and a referral to a homeopath for craniosacral therapy and Neuro-Emotional techniques. And as I filled Dave in our appointment with this new doctor I commented that our regular pediatrician would never have made any of these recommendations.

“That’s not their job,” he offered.

“Yes, it is,” I said.

At least, it should be.

I don’t expect every pediatric practice to offer acupuncture or craniosacral therapy or to suggest trying fish oil supplements for mood management. But considering the staggering number of children with special needs and the ever widening array of possible treatments, shouldn’t pediatricians at least be able to make us aware of these options?

How much more press does autism or ADHD medications have to get before the mainstream treatment net is cast wider? Isn’t six million children in this country with speech and language disorders enough to merit more education on the part of the medical community?

I am certainly thrilled to have found this new doctor and am eager to see what improvements we may find with the new treatments. But I am somewhat disappointed that I couldn’t turn to our own pediatrician for help.

But I can’t say that I’m surprised.

According to a survey conducted by the American Academy of Pediatrics in 2001, while 94% of respondents agreed that pediatricians should inquire about a child’s development, 80% cited time limitation as a barrier to doing so. Fifty-five percent felt they received inadequate reimbursement from insurance companies and 46% had the nerve to claim “unfamiliarity with CPT codes” as a reason for not doing developmental assessments during well-child visits. You know what a CPT code is? It’s one of those numbers on that piece of paper you take up front to cash out at your doctor’s office; each medical procedure is assigned one.

To say you can’t do a developmental assessment because you don’t understand which code to use is akin to not submitting your tax papers for a refund because you couldn’t find a stamp. It doesn’t make sense.

If pediatricians can’t be bothered to even screen for developmental problems, how can we expect them to know how to treat them?

Max will now be getting double the fish oil he took in the past. I’ll mix in half a teaspoon of probiotics in his milk every morning. And next week we’ll talk about how craniosacral therapy might help manage his moodiness, agitation and compulsive behaviors. I don’t know if any of it will work…we’re just following doctor’s orders.

Regardless of what Max’s medical regiment will producee, one thing is for sure – following doctor’s orders will certainly be easier than it was to find a doctor who could issue them.