Most parents
ask me, “Do you take insurance?” My answer is always “No, I voluntarily refuse to be on any insurance
panels.” After I explain my reasons for not taking insurance, most families understand completely.
The Effects of a Psychiatric Diagnosis
on Children and Their Familes
Insurance benefits can only be used for the treatment of illness. This means that your therapist
must give your children a formal psychiatric diagnosis before they can receive treatment. A psychiatric diagnosis can
usually be made when children are in psychological distress, but many personal and life problems do not require a formal psychiatric
diagnosis to be treated. Increasingly, diagnoses come back to haunt children and their families.
Many parents have found that using health insurance benefits for psychotherapy has actually cost
them more money because, after making a claim, their premiums went up. This is despite overwhelming scientific evidence that
therapy can improve general health and can reduce total medical bills and doctor utilization. Life and disability insurance
applications have been held up or denied because of some psychiatric diagnoses. The very existence of psychiatric diagnoses
creates a false impression that most children sail through life without serious problems and only the ill need help. This
is just not true. Every child in our fast paced, highly stressful society can experience difficulties. This is normal.
No child can be expected to automatically have the entire set of coping skills needed to navigate childhood.
Therapy helps children acquire skills they have not yet had a chance to develop. The system of psychiatric
diagnoses is only one way of looking at human problems. Its biggest advantage is that it helps get health insurance benefits,
an advantage that is waning. Psychiatric diagnoses do not usually describe issues in ways that help children actually solve
their problems. Diagnoses should only guide treatment, not dictate it.
Based on material provided by H. Corsover, 2002 & S. Christian,
2007
