Bay Area Speech & Language

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Both of my toddlers are on the autism spectrum disorder. Mrs. Jennifer Hollibaugh (owner/therapist) is absolutely amazing with them. They are both very shy and picky when it comes to people. They both loved Mrs. Jennifer and Mrs. Stephanie (office manager). In the small amount of time my children have seen her, they have made great progress so far. We would recommend her to anybody and everybody.

So my 18 month starting attending speech therapy there back in March, 2012. After 4 months of once a week, 30 minute sessions, my son has made minimal improvement, the same he would have made without the therapy, I found out that Connie, the office manager, had overcharged $240 in copays that I was NOT supposed to be charged and that I was told (once again by Connie & Aubrey, my son's therapist) that my sessions were only supposed to be 30 minutes long but they kept recommending I "double up" on my sessions, using 2 of my insurance authorized visits per week, so that my son would have an hour session of therapy.



3 months into the speech therapy, I find out that other speech therapists routinely give the parents "homework" assignments to work on with their child each week. I was NEVER given any such instruction. In fact, when I found this out and did ask, the therapist apologized and thought she had given me in the beginning, a 2 page print out of helpful tools in helping a child with a speech delay. That information was something I could have looked up & printed from the internet myself. After the therapist gave me the hand-out on tips, she never again provided any type of regular instruction (or homework) on how to help my son.



Frustrated at my son's lack of progress, despite the weekly speech therapy sessions, I finally contacted the state's Head Start program. They performed an assessment of my son's speech, and concluded that he should receive an hour of speech therapy a week, that would be provided at my house. I was told their therapists were very good and that I would see results quickly. However, I would need to exhaust my health insurance benefits before I could receive their services.



At my son's last appointment at Bay Area Speech, I asked if they would request my insurance to authorize an hour session, as that seems to be what is needed (as both the Bay Area speech therapist recommended it several times to me-though I declined because I would then be charged $30/session) & Connie told me that was not possible as the contracted amount of time was 30 minutes. I then explained how the state said my son needed an hour a week of therapy & she again said that I could "double up" on my sessions so that the session would be an hour. I then said I could not afford to pay $30 a week in copays & that I would not be returning to that agency for future services.



Later that day, I called my health insurance company to find out for myself, if an hour of therapy could be covered. It was then that I found out that my insurance covered whatever length of time that the provider deemed appropriate & that there was NO COPAY! I can't tell you how upset this experience with Bay Area Speech has made me. Not only did they overcharge me but they provided an ineffective amount of therapy for my son, and therapy itself was below standard.



When contacted by phone, Connie explains overcharging me for numerous weeks, as having looked up my insurance plan, using her computer, but obviously still getting it wrong. Connie's explanation as to why only 30 minute sessions were held was that it was "office policy." Then the owner, Jennifer Hollibaugh, called me. She said as a result of her contract negotiations with my health insurance, the amount she is paid, only covers half an hour of services-contrary to the contract's language of the length of service to be determined by the service provider, as deemed appropriate. So the bottom line, they are committing insurance fraud, to get me to use "2 visits" to cover the hour of services my son needed but didn't receive.



I plan to file more complaints regarding this service provider. NO ONE should ever have to have this HORRIBLE experience happen to them. My insurance company has apologized but no one can give me 4 wasted months of my time & my son's sensitive developmental time back.