How one mother’s compassion led to action

It sounds awful, I know, but I’m being honest. My husband and I are happily married (most days…ha!) with intelligent, kind, beautiful children. There have been no major adversity or trauma in their lives (that we know of), so I naively believed we would skirt past any mental health care issues. I didn’t give any thought about needing Rogers, and I knew nothing about Rogers Foundation. I was very wrong in my assumptions of the mental health care we would need! After two admissions to local adolescent psychiatric units for our daughter, being prescribed medication after medication, seeing multiple therapists, and attending several outpatient programs, we found our daughter back where she started. On her third emergency room visit, I refused placement to anywhere but Rogers. She was willing and ready for the hard work she needed to do. At Rogers, our insurance was amazing and covered the full amount of her recommended stay. We didn’t realize how lucky we were until one day; I was in the waiting room when I heard a familiar voice. It was that of a dear friend of whom I had lost touch with over time. She was here with her child, as well. She shared with me that one month into her child’s recommended three-month stay, her insurance company told her that they would only cover three more days of treatment. After that, her child, who was nowhere near ready, would have to go home. I was devastated for my friend and felt terrible that my child was able to continue her progress until she was ready to discharge, while her child did not have that same luxury.

My friend called me the day before she was supposed to pick her child up to tell me that God had worked a miracle. There was a Foundation at Rogers that was going to cover the costs of two more weeks of treatment to help her child gain additional skills and prepare for the next steps before returning home.

I knew right then where our yearly donation was going!

Until about five years ago, my husband and I lived paycheck to paycheck while I worked part-time to care for our family. Despite that, we have always tried to be generous givers. This past winter, we were happy to give our annual donation to Rogers Foundation. And, thanks to my husband’s employer’s matching gift program, we were able to double our donation to help more families at Rogers. We hope our gift, as well as many others, continues to make a difference to those who aren’t as lucky as us.  Our daughter is thriving now, and we know it is because Rogers Behavioral Health helped her. We were fortunate enough to have amazing coverage for our daughter so she could get the care she needed.

Knowing insurance dictates coverage for many is disheartening but knowing Rogers Foundation is there to step in when this happens made it clear they had a mission we wanted to support.