Services

• Initial Intake Process
• Evaluation / Screening Process
• Insurance
• Therapy / Home Program Information

Initial Intake Process

1. Call us at 484 840-1529 to complete an initial intake phone consultation. Joyce Ritz is our front office manager and will complete a form with you that will consist of demographic information, as well as exploring the reason for your call to make the most appropriate decision as to which therapist should be returning your call.
2. A trained therapist will call you back to complete a telephone interview, so we could assist you in determining the needs of your child (or yourself) and discuss different evaluation or screening options with you. It would assist us in our call with you if you have familiarized yourself with our process by reading the evaluation / screening section on our website.
3. After completion of the telephone interview, an evaluation / screening date will be scheduled. Our evaluations / screenings are usually scheduled in the mornings.
4. You will receive a packet in the mail clarifying the date and type of evaluation to be performed, as well as different questionnaires to complete. We encourage families to complete these forms over time, and not do them all in one sitting. This could be overwhelming and result in contradicting information. You will be able to gain more of the evaluation process if you complete these questionnaires ahead of time and not on the day of the evaluation / screening.

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Evaluation / Screening Process

1. We request that families bring our questionnaires as well as any recent evaluations completed by their school districts, neuro-psychologists, developmental pediatricians, counselors, developmental optometrists etc. to the evaluation session. Families do not need to send the questionnaires back prior to the scheduled date.
2. We enjoy having the parent of the child (student) in the evaluation session with us, so we could collaborate and dynamically assist each other and maximize our time together. Parents know their children better than we do and in some occasions, especially with older students, parents do choose the option not to be present.
3. In the case of a comprehensive evaluation, the therapist(s) will complete the report after the visit, which is then reviewed by another therapist. This process could be up to 3 weeks. For joint evaluations that involve more than one discipline this process could take up to 4 weeks.
4. The family has time to read this report before the scheduled consultation session and prepare their questions or need for clarification
5. Once the evaluation / screening process is completed both parents (or self) will attend a consultation session at A Total Approach. We prefer for both parents to be available at this meeting if possible or in the case of an adult, their life partner or other person they prefer.
6. No decisions are made at this meeting and A Total Approach therapists do not call the family after the consultation is completed, unless preferred by the family. Once the family has researched their options and made the decision, they call A Total Approach at their convenience.

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Insurance

1. We do not accept or work with insurance companies directly. We are considered to be an "out of network" program. Some of our programs are considered to be educational and not reimbursable by insurance, but other programs involving medical therapies, such as occupational therapy, physical therapy or speech language therapy are eligible for insurance reimbursement.
2. Once the family has decided which course of action to take, A Total Approach will complete a "plan of care" letter that will outline the medical need, as well as state the needed frequency of treatment. The family will send this letter with a doctor's prescription note, and their accounting statement of the first evaluation to their insurance company. The insurance company will let them know what their reimbursable rate is.
3. We do not make calls to insurance companies, though we supply each client with a monthly statement of appropriate reimbursable treatment codes for each visit to assist in reimbursement, for those services deemed reimbursable.

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Therapy / Home Program Information

1. A Total Approach also provides school consultation on evaluations. This occurs mostly via telephone presence, since the travel and time is cost prohibitive for most families, especially for our out of state clients.
2. Some options to consider would involve a once or twice a week visit to our center in combination with a consistent home program. We feel strongly about home programs, because it: empowers the parent (client) with knowledge, more generalization from clinic session to function at home, more intensity of strengthening neural pathways on a more frequent basis than once weekly visit, increased improvement in targeted areas over a shorter space of time, less financial implication for the family in the long term.
3. We do have a cancellation policy for weekly visits that states as follows: a cancellation of a session caused by family circumstances is requested to be re-scheduled within 30 days from the cancelled session, otherwise a session charge will be added to their monthly statement. We allocate a specific therapist to the client's care and this therapist has to be reimbursed whether the client arrives for his / her session or not. This compromise between our facility and our families have proved to be family friendly, more productive in terms of functional outcome, as well as enabled us in our quest of retention of well trained staff members.
4. Our therapy home programs are never more than 30 minutes in length and usually include a good dose of family fun. The home programs are generally a concise and specific list of activities for the client to perform. The home programs follow the same developmental trajectory as our developmental phase program philosophy. In our DIR/Floortime program parents learn to apply the facilitation techniques throughout the day as well as have a good 60 minute Floortime session on a daily basis.
5. Also bear in mind that some home programs, such as Balametrics and Therapeutic Listening would require the purchase of equipment for the home. A Total Approach therapist's will assist in what to buy and where to obtain it, though the family (client) will be responsible for ordering and setting up delivery to their home. At this time there is no medical reimbursement for such home equipment.
6. Some of our programs are group oriented, such as our Music Therapy groups. These groups could meet either weekly or twice weekly. Families sign up for 10 weeks at a time in bulk sessions.
7. Our Infant Massage classes are also provided at bulk sessions of 1x weekly over 5 weeks.
8. A minimum attendance of 3x per week for the duration of the Interactive Metronome Program is required. This high frequency is viewed as important to the effective outcome of the program.
9. The P.L.A.Y. Project is a DIR/Floortime Program that consists of monthly home visits of 3 hours each with an experienced Floortime Practitioner, a DVD review completed by Maude Le Roux (DIR Certificate), and a monthly written report with goals and activity ideas.
10. Occupational and Physical Therapy intensives including Tomatis Training is scheduled for 3 loops: First loop 15 days, second loop 8 days, third loop 8 days. Each day the child receives 2 hours of occupational or physical therapy, while completing the Tomatis sound therapy over headphones. Four blocks of time* are scheduled for occupational and / or physical therapy intensives with Tomatis Training every week day:
    • 9 am to 11 am
    • 11.30 am to 1.30 pm
    • 2 pm to 4 pm (Mondays 3 to 5pm)
    • 5 pm to 7 pm
    *Saturday times may be scheduled differently and will be arranged with the family.
11. For clients interested in Intensive Programs, which could be completed several hours a day over periods of 1, 2 or 3 weeks, we require an evaluation / screening before commencement of such an intensive program. If clients are "out-of-state" or live far enough to cause them to have to stay overnight in hotels, we require a video / DVD of their child (or adult) two weeks prior to the appointment in order to prepare the team appropriately.
12. A Total Approach provides training seminars/workshops to parent groups as well as to school districts, school teams and other professionals.

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