Private Diagnosis - what type of assessor?

Better make an appointment then !! :) and hopefully better luck this time ????

H&s charge £265 for the initial and then £1505 for the full. 

Both h&s and the mental health therapist use aq and eq etc at the initial stage whereas the psychologist i saw from somewhere else didnt use any forms.

i wish i could have told her what i thought she was saying was a load of rubbish but I’m never good with words especially not in person, never mind.

What a load of pants!! I make eye contact, it's something you learn to make yourself do (and so does my son). Also, I went to school,college and University. The education thing shows their ignorance especially as people with Asperger's have average or about average IQ (My son got 11 A* GCSE and 4 A's at A-level, so this proves the school thing is a load of cr*p).

Don't forget that you'll get an initial consultation for £175 and you would hope that if they agree to the full assessment, then they would just be confirming their suspicions, based on the supplied forms (AQ & EQ etc) and the interview???.

Yep  the psychologist from another company said you make eye contact and went to school so dont bother with a full assessment!

autism hampshire have recommended h&s and 3 counties. Just worried about taking the cheaper route and it not being valid or something!

Do Autism Hampshire recommend anyone in particular? I vaguely remember you saying you had an initial consultation somewhere and they didn't think you had ASC or did I get that wrong? :) 

Thanks thats helpful to know regarding after sessions

Well this is the thing, from autism hampshire i have also found 3 counties who come in much cheaper than h&s do so I’m just checking my options to see what would be a better route. Its the difference of about £700 

I had my assessment done privately with a clinical pyschologist. A lot of clinical psychologists privately tend to do the assessments for the NHS as well. The only difference is it costs more but you can get it done a lot quicker. 

When i had my diagnosis, she sent the letter to my GP so it was recorded on my medical records. Just as long as the diagnosis is official and comes from an experienced assessor/pyschologist it will still count as an official diagnosis. 

One thing I would say is if you are to go down the pyschologist route, just use them for the diagnosis. I carried on seeing mine following my diagnosis and I ended up paying for sessions which were pretty pointless. She just kept asking me 'how i was' and there was no actual benefit from the sessions. 

The best thing to do is get the diagnosis then have CBT or therapy to help with anxiety seperately. 

My situation is that I have a private assessment by someone who is recognised by a local Autism charity but the local NHS are in breach of their NICE Guidelines.  I am escalating that this month.

My assessor used the EQ/AQ questionnaires which gave enough to warrant the full assessment and subsequent diagnosis of Aspergers (TBH there are differences between that and High Functioning Autism).

I still believe it is all down to money/bean counters in the NHS and if you meet the 16% in employment then there is nothing much wrong with you.

Have you decided to give the "Psychologists" another go then?? :) 

Thank you, both of the assessors are listed on my local page and on the nas directory, so i guess no reason to doubt the validity of the outcome?

There is a lot of urban myth that private diagnoses are not recognized by the NHS.

I have not found this to be so, in fact NICE guidelines state that no one should be discriminated against because of having private diagnoses or private treatment.

Obviously someone should be qualified for the diagnosis but someone advertising that they are qualified will be so, otherwise they will face penalties of the law for fraud.  Find out beforehand by asking questions,!if they want your!custom they will not be evasive.  Añd there are lists on this site of those who work privately.

There is a lot of urban myth that private diagnoses are not recognized by the NHS.

I have not found this to be so, in fact NICE guidelines state that no one should be discriminated against because of having private diagnoses or private treatment.

Obviously someone should be qualified for the diagnosis but someone advertising that they are qualified will be so, otherwise they will face penalties of the law for fraud.  Find out beforehand by asking questions,!if they want your!custom they will not be evasive.  Añd there are lists on this site of those who work privately.

Thanks for your reply. I asked the MH therapist and she said she is supervised by a clinical psychologist and her assessments are the same as the NHS as she used to work for them too. 

I dont know what services/support I would be looking at in order to check. Do you think just ask the gp?

my private one was with a clinical psychologist, who is actually the same one the NHS use. So fully accepted and valid.

Could you perhaps email them/your GP to ask if their diagnoses are accepted by the NHS/other services