Logan Cabiao has a severe form of autism and is nonverbal. At 10 years old, his parents say, he needs round-the-clock support and supervision. <\/p>\n
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Logan cannot brush his teeth or use the bathroom on his own. Routine doctor\u2019s appointments can become so overwhelming that his parents sometimes need to sedate him. In crowded places he may run off without warning, they say.<\/p>\n
When he was diagnosed with autism<\/a> at the age of 2, his parents turned to applied behavior analysis, or ABA, a therapy commonly used to help children learn daily life skills and limit harmful behaviors. The treatment gave Logan access to a therapist who worked with him throughout the day. <\/p>\n \u201cI was so desperate to start ABA,\u201d said his mother, Kristi Cabiao, of Niceville, Florida. \u201cWe were tired. We hadn\u2019t been sleeping.\u201d <\/p>\n But in 2021, TRICARE \u2014 the military\u2019s healthcare program that covers Logan through his father, Mario Cabiao, a retired Air Force pilot \u2014 imposed new requirements for ABA coverage. It added roadblocks to access and significantly narrowed the range of services available. <\/p>\n The new rules included stricter paperwork, mandatory assessments, limits on certain services and the use of \u201cautism services navigators,\u201d who must approve a child\u2019s overall care plan before TRICARE will pay for treatment. The program also stopped covering most services in school settings. <\/p>\n While Logan continues to receive some ABA care at a nearby center, his most hands-on sessions involving basic activities \u2014 such as toothbrushing, handwashing and getting dressed \u2014 are no longer covered.<\/p>\n \u201cThey said that\u2019s babysitting,\u201d Kristi Cabiao said, recalling a virtual Q&A she attended with the Defense Health Agency, which oversees TRICARE. \u201cIt was really offensive.\u201d<\/p>\n NBC News reported last month<\/a> that many TRICARE beneficiaries in a different part of the country have faced persistent challenges with coverage \u2014 including widespread billing errors, delayed reimbursement and denied claims \u2014 after the Defense Health Agency changed over the contractor responsible for administering benefits in its Western region. Several weeks after NBC\u2019s report, that contractor, TriWest Healthcare Alliance, issued a public apology<\/a> for problems with its coverage. The Defense Health Agency is part of the Defense Department.<\/p>\n The Defense Health Agency did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Kristi Cabiao, who is a nonpracticing physician, said access to ABA therapy had been \u201clife-changing\u201d for her family.<\/p>\n She said that, despite her medical training, she felt powerless during Logan\u2019s early years. At one point, she said, she had to perform the Heimlich maneuver on Logan because he began choking on objects he put in his mouth. After starting ABA, everyday activities became a lot more manageable, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI had a lot of guilt because I felt like I couldn\u2019t help him,\u201d Cabiao said. \u201cAnd then when our therapist came in, finally she\u2019s like, \u2018It\u2019s not your fault,\u2019 and she helped us.\u201d<\/p>\n Mario Cabiao said he worries about what will happen when Logan becomes an adult, when he\u2019ll need to start doing more on his own. He said Logan currently has the functional life skills of a 2-year-old.<\/p>\n \u201cTime is of the essence, and eight years is not a lot of time,\u201d he said, alluding to the time when he will be 18 years old.<\/p>\n ABA helps children with autism to develop important life skills, said Alycia Halladay, chief science officer at the Autism Science Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy group. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all about breaking things down into smaller steps, and then also providing the appropriate reinforcement for things,\u201d Halladay said. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is how we all learn, by the way,\u201d she added. \u201cWe all learn to go to the potty by somebody reinforcing us by going to the bathroom on the potty. We learned to be on time by people reinforcing us and giving us positive accolades for being on time. Kids with autism, they get it more intensely and they get it more directed based on the skill they need help with.\u201d<\/p>\n Most states have mandates requiring private insurers to cover ABA or other behavioral interventions for children with autism, Halladay said. <\/p>\n If you are dealing with bills that seem to be out of line or a denial of coverage, care or repairs, whether for health, home or auto, please email us at Costofdenial@nbcuni.com.<\/a><\/p>\n Those mandates, however, don\u2019t apply to the federal government, including federal programs such as TRICARE, she said. (Some federal programs do cover the therapy for children, including Medicaid and the Federal Employees Health Benefit, the government\u2019s health insurance program for federal employees, retirees and their families.)<\/p>\n In 2021, Kristi Cabiao started a nonprofit called Mission Alpha aimed at pressuring both TRICARE and members of Congress to restore broad coverage of ABA. She lobbied Congress for an independent study reviewing the effectiveness of the therapy, which was launched that same year and conducted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. Last September, the group published a 336-page report<\/a> affirming that ABA should be included as a basic benefit under TRICARE, without the excessive administrative barriers that have disrupted treatment for children in military families. <\/p>\n The report stated the evidence to support ABA therapy \u201cis robust\u201d and meets \u201cthe Department of Defense\u2019s own criteria of reliable evidence.\u201d <\/p>\n Last fall, the American Academy of Pediatrics, along with the Council for Autism Service Providers, a trade group, and the advocacy groups Autism Speaks, Exceptional Family Members of the Military, the National Military Family Association, TRICARE for Kids and Cabiao\u2019s Mission Alpha, signed a letter to Congress urging implementation. TRICARE has still declined to do so.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a cost to people not being able to get services that they would potentially benefit from,\u201d said David Sitcovsky, vice president of advocacy at Autism Speaks. \u201cAnd while of course, every healthcare service costs some amount of money, this has been proven to be an effective intervention for a lot of autistic individuals.\u201d<\/p>\n Kristi Cabiao said she and her husband have built a small house in their backyard, hoping that one day Logan will be able to live there on his own. Logan is currently being homeschooled.\u201cIt makes me mad, yeah, makes me emotional,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n As a member of the military, Mario Cabiao said it feels like a betrayal. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve just been denied that opportunity for him to progress,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n ABA \u201cis evidence-based and it is based on science,\u201d Halladay said. \u201cIt makes me sick to think that military veterans and their families are getting less than what other people are getting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Logan Cabiao has a severe form of autism and is nonverbal. At 10 years old, his parents say,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726628,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[97,252,253],"class_list":["post-726627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health-care","tag-health","tag-health-care","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Logan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260624-Logan-2023-pic-taken-at-ABA-center-by-therapist-ch-1355-7823be.jpg\")
Logan Cabiao.Courtesy Kristi Cabiao<\/p>\n![\"Mario](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/260624-Mario-in-back-of-C130-ch-1354-c4b802.jpg\")
Mario Cabiao, a retired Air Force pilot, said the restrictions on his son’s coverage feel like a betrayal.Courtesy Kristi Cabiao<\/p>\n