Special Insights: Her little pony

Growing up, I always wanted a pony. What little girl doesn’t? I don’t think I had an opportunity, though, to ride a horse until I was in my late teens. So it blows my mind that my little girl had her first pony ride today. And she will get to ride her pony, a little white retired show pony named Molly, every Thursday morning for the foreseeable future. These aren’t just any old pony rides, either. They are official hippotherapy sessions. A physical therapist guides Kaia on the horse around the large barn. Kaia rides facing forward and then facing backward. As kids progress, they even stand while riding on the horse. We saw a little 3 year old boy doing that during Kaia’s session today. Apparently he had started hippotherapy a year ago and couldn’t even bear weight on his legs. Within six months he was walking. There’s more info about hippotherapy in this article: http://www.nuvo.net/news/article/horses-heal The company featured in the article is the one where Kaia rides. The therapist named at the beginning is also Kaia’s therapist.

All of Kaia’s therapists have been telling us grand tales of how much progress Kaia will make when she starts hippotherapy. I don’t even care if that’s true. Don’t get me wrong, I want her to progress. I’m just excited that she is riding a horse! And I hold my expectations in check, especially after the professional who fitted her orthotics told us that kids were often walking within a couple weeks after getting them (orthotics). We just want this to be a pleasurable experience for her and I know that it is an amazing opportunity for her – in terms of sensory-input, another hour with a physical therapist, and just riding a horse, for goodness sakes!

Getting there has been a little complicated. Kaia’s been on the waiting list for occupational and physical hippotherapy since November. She was number 8 for OT and number 4 for PT. The hippotherapy stable called last week with openings for both OT and PT. We were in a bit of a dilemma over how to proceed with therapy because we were unsure how we wanted to pay for the sessions. The early intervention program through which Kaia currently receives occupational and physical therapy would cover hippotherapy by replacing either her OT or PT provider in the home. We’d also have to prove that these therapies were not working in the home. Right now she receives 2 hours of OT in the home and 1 hr of PT per week. Her OT works on feeding issues in addition to fine motor skills. The hippotherapy provider only had 1 hr of OT open and they cannot work on feeding at the barn. You’d think we could just keep 1 hour of OT in the home to work on feeding and have 1 hour at the stable for hippotherapy OT, right? Apparently that’s a big no-no. It seems it is impossible to have two providers on her plan for the same service (OT). (If you utilize early intervention in Indiana and have a different experience, please let me know.) We also really did not want to give up Kaia’s current PT in the home. In the end, we decided to do hippotherapy by paying for it with private insurance. This meant paying more out of pocket (a copay and coinsurance). That may not sound like much but over the course of a year it adds up. Our insurance is strange in that we have unlimited PT benefits – no annual limit on visits, no specific lifetime cap. However, OT benefits are unbelievably low. There is no annual limit on visits, but there is a lifetime cap of $1000. That covers maybe 10 visits. If you have a child with an ongoing need for OT, that is pitiful coverage. Kaia will receive, thankfully, services with the early intervention program until she’s 3. After that, it’s the school system, and from what I’ve been told, there really is no such thing as individual, 1 on 1 therapy there. That’s something we’ll just have to deal with in the future, though. Right now we decided to keep her two hours of OT in the home with early intervention, as well as her hour of PT, and utilize our private insurance to cover hippotherapy as PT. We’re still hoping that we may be able to appeal the ridiculous rule I mentioned regarding 2 providers with early intervention but I’m glad that we have such good PT coverage with our insurance and that she could get started right away. That’s the most important thing.

Here’s a couple shots of Kaia’s first pony ride. You can see that I was the sidewalker. Normally they don't allow parents to do that. Since it was Kaia's first time they made an exception.