What's that saying about the squeaky wheel?

At 12:23 pm today I wrote to our local EI director and complained about the wait list for speech therapy services.

Dear Mr. X,

I am the mother of Marielle, a 14 month old severely hearing impaired girl. We recently found out that for seven of the past eleven months, Marielle's hearings aids were set so low that she was getting very little if any benefit from them. I think Miss K has been doing a fantastic job with Marielle, but clearly with the loss of 7+ months of adequate amplification, she is not reaching her IFSP goals.

I contacted our service coordinator Miss J on 12/17 and she helped set up a speech therapy evaluation for Marielle. The speech therapist has now evaluated Marielle and we have been added to a wait list though I am told this wait list is fairly long and there is no guarantee of when we will receive services. We were told it is not a matter of having enough money to pay for more speech therapists, but a shortage of
personnel.

Yesterday I was in Richmond at a ITC committee meeting. When I introduced myself and spoke about Marielle I mentioned we were on a wait list
for speech therapy services. Gasps were heard around the room. Miss B from ITC
suggested I contact you right away to register my complaint about the wait list situation.

I have some excellent news for you! I see in my handy binder that the rate of reimbursement for a speech therapist our county is $120. I have located a qualified pediatric speech therapist who is providing services at the bargain rate of $110/hour. We have started services and I have been filing claims with my insurance. Once I find out what is not being reimbursed by insurance I will let you know. Once you are able to remove us from the wait list please let me know if you wish for me to continue with our "bargain" therapist or if you prefer for us to use one of yours.

Within four hours I received a call. Looks like someone magically became available! The first time I was offered was 7 am Mondays. Hilarious. Instead we will be doing the slightly more reasonable hour of 9 am.

Update, 2/14:

So the county director called me today and explained that they don't actually pay the therapists $120/hour, that's just what they bill the insurance. Uh, what? According to the handy notebook they gave me when we started, that's what they bill the families too. (The ones not getting a fee waiver or using private insurance.) So guess my $110 wasn't such a bargain after all. ;)