Ahhahhha... I'm trying for 3 years now to get the diagnostics done. I'm in europe with government regulated healthcare and still pay my medications out of pocket, because its only covered with a formal diagnosis which I can't get anywhere.

$5k?! A doctor's visit is $250 for me (insurance doesn't cover anything until I never reach the deductible). Also there were only like 2 tests totalling 20-ish questions. The hardest part was making an appointment, which I never would have done if I wasn't also making appointments for other pressing health issues.

Public schools do free screenings in other to qualify for special education or 504 school accommodations. This may only cover students in the district home area and not private school students or adults.

The down side is that some school districts have quotas on how much of the school population can be considered SpEd or 504. But a pediatric psychiatrist can make that determination regardless of the school diagnostician findings to justify accommodations.

Yeah, but if you're disabled and broke you get free healthcare in America...

Source: That's why I'm not dead.

As someone who's due a diagnosis (hopefully) soon, what type of questions do they ask you?

I had messaged my doctor's office sometime in Aug last year, they said to call and schedule an apt with my doc. So I went to my physical some months later, December maybe, and they brought it up. I confirmed, we talked, and they said they would refer me to a local place that does screenings, but it would probably be a few months wait. A few months later I go in to my doctor for a shoulder injury, and followed up about having never received contact from that other place. They looked into it and the referral never got made and sent. Not ideal, but I've been at it for 30+ years so what's another couple of months. It has also now been more than a few months and I still don't have a call back.

I enjoy my doctor and the office, but I think it's time to find a new doctor's office.

It's not necessarily going just to get confirmed, but you have to go to get medication which will improve your quality of life.

I'm 53 now and was considering getting an official diagnosis a few years ago, I even had the initial appointments set up.

I canceled it, because there was too much going on in my life at that moment (even got a notification I could reschedule for later)

All that made me think about what I was hoping for from diagnosis. In the end it was just having something in writing that would help me with self-acceptance.

Around that time I also was in a group psychotherapy so I talked about that and that part is now solved.

Regarding meds - I don't want to try them now as my other coping strategies are good enough at the moment and I'm a bit wary of side effects as I need to take a handful of. medicine every day, anyways.

In the end you need to decide why you want a diagnosis. If you want to try meds I'd go for it. (My son "inherited" it from me and had meds for a time, which really helped him).

In a case like mine where I didn't expect any new strategies out of it or didn't want meds - it was probably the right decision to skip it.