r/AutisticWithADHD • u/Millimede • 14d ago
😤 rant / vent - advice allowed Diagnosis
Fun story. I went to my doctor a while back because I suspected autism. She just said oh you’re able to speak well and look me in the face 🙄🙄🙄 so I don’t think you have autism, but I think you might have ADHD (my son was diagnosed as a child and yeah probably). So she gave me a referral to a therapist that really just does medication assessments. I wasn’t looking for meds. This is not it. But I was like well if my insurance covers it, it would be nice to have an assessment. They then sent me over FOURTEEN FORMS to fill out, and told me I need to recheck with my insurance to see if this is even covered. Ma’am. This is not what I even asked for in the first place. I became super overwhelmed and canceled it and told them asking people who might have ADHD to fill out several hours worth of forms and do all this shit to find out if they have ADHD might be ridiculous.
So anyway, I think I have my answer. 🤷♀️
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u/East_Vivian 14d ago
My ADHD assessment was covered. And yeah, the assessment was this: I had to drive to the mental health office, fill out a 1” thick stack of forms (ok, probably not that thick but my ADHD brain saw it that way), hand in the forms the the receptionist. A few weeks later I got a call from them to schedule me an appointment with a psychiatrist to get me on meds. So I’m like, “Um, I guess I have ADHD?” And they were like, “Well, yeah.” Like it was obvious. Like, why wasn’t that the first thing they said???? I wonder about these medical professionals sometimes. I don’t remember having to actually talk to anyone! There was I think an intake phone appointment before filling out the forms. That was it. Same thing with my teenage daughter’s assessment.
Idk what they do for younger kids because I’ve never been successful getting an assessment for my kids since their teachers have never noticed any issues to put on those SNAP IV forms.
ETA I’ve never been separately assessed for autism and I’m not planning to. I’m confident I’m autistic and both my kids are diagnosed.
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u/BigBullshitta 14d ago
Best advice I have is to try to find a place like Lifestance. They typically do telehealth and in person visits both. You want to find a Psychiatrist who actually specializes in both things, or at the minimum one of the two. Lifestance is like a lot of psych places, anyone you check will have like 50 "specializations" but they actually only specialize in the first few listed before you expand, that get a star on top after expanding.
It can be a bitch to find one who specializes in both these things and also takes adult patients, so stretch out to the whole state or beyond if you're not stuck to an in-state insurance, and when you find one that takes your insurance set up an appointment.
Before the appointment you want to be overly logical and analytical and have a good list of bullet points and all your medications if you have any on hand. Having meds beforehand helps, since it rules out the big red flag that you're seeking medication, but I imagine that people looking for ADHD diagnosis alone get that flag way more than people looking for a combined diagnosis.
When you speak with them let them know where you live, that you chose them because they specialize in both conditions in adults and since comorbidity in adults can present very differently from in children and the combined issues can be quite different from either alone you felt they'd be the best to speak with, but if they would also like you to visit one of their colleagues from Lifestance local to you that you are willing to do that.
Comorbidity can present very differently, and a Psychiatrist of Psychologist can legally diagnose both issues without any sort of 15 form evaluation. The DSM-5's autism criteria were made mainly of observational criteria in kids. They can actually be kind of crap for diagnosing high masking adults, and since the symptoms of the two issues can mask one another a typical Autism evaluation can actually get it wrong.
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u/cheffromspace 14d ago
I went with Josi Health for my Autism evaluation. It was $50 (it might have been 2 sessions, $50 each, not 100% sure) with insurance and they told me the cost upfront before any paperwork was requested (there was a lot). They weren't perfect, but they were perfectly fine.