Function is Not a Luxury: Insurance Should Cover Maintenance Therapy By:Jason Hahr

 What comes to mind when you hear the words “physical or occupational therapy”? Most of you who will read this are probably only familiar with the words in the context of rehab. By that, I mean most readers of this post will associate physical and occupational therapy only with injuries or accidents. In my opinion, this is because these services are believed to “fix” a problem. If one hurts their meniscus or knee, as my now wife, Samantha, or as I like to call her “love bug,” did several months ago, for example, you would go to physical therapy with the goal of gaining function back in your knee. Once you get to what is known as your baseline level of functioning, or you stop making progress towards a goal, your therapy comes to an end.

In theory, that would make sense except for the fact that most people with disabilities need therapy to maintain a basic level of functionality and are not receiving therapy as a result of an injury that will “get better” over time. The problem comes with the way we view therapy and the way insurance companies treat those who need it, no matter the type of therapy, i.e., speech, physical, or occupational. As I said above, if a goal is not met, or if some random algorithm determines that you have exceeded the allowed number of visits per year, then you are shit out of luck.

When you have a disability, progress is not always noticeable or existent. The reason most people with disabilities receive these services, myself included, is so that they don’t wind up curled in a ball in bed all day. Okay, that might have been a crude way to say it, but my point is the same. Without therapies, people with disabilities lose the little function they have. However, as with many aspects of being disabled, it is a numbers game. If there is no money involved, there is no incentive to be helpful. 

    In closing, this post may appear angry, and it partly is, but instead of ending on an angry note, might I suggest a few things that would change the game for everybody involved? If a concept known as maintenance therapy were covered by insurance, it would allow people with disabilities to receive more than 40 visits a year and not lose the progress they gained during each session. For this to happen, though, we need to change the way society views not only therapy but people with disabilities in general. Maintenance therapy is crucial for people with disabilities, not to “fix” them, but to allow them to live without limits, and once we change the way we view this segment of society, maybe we will change the way we treat not only them but people in general.