Rates
$30 per 15-minute sessions
$60 per 30-minute sessions
$120 per 60-minute session
$180 per 90 minute session
$30 for each additional participant
Payment- Cash, check and all major credit cards accepted for payment. We are also FSA and HSA eligible.
Insurance- We DO NOT participate directly with insurance companies. You are able to download all of your receipts and invoices at your convenience from our portal in order to give them to your insurance company for reimbursement according to your out of network benefits, if you choose to do so. Services may be reimbursable in full or in part by your health insurance. Please check your coverage carefully by asking the following questions:
- Do I have out of network mental health insurance benefits?
- What is my deductible and has it been met?
- How many sessions per year does my health insurance cover?
- What is the coverage amount per therapy session?
- Is approval required from my primary care physician?
Cancellation Policy- If you do not show up for your scheduled therapy appointment, and you have not notified us at least 24 hours in advance, you will be required to pay the full cost of the session.
Schedule Online
Request a therapy appointment online here. Please also tell us in the message when the best times are for you to have therapy. Our practice caters to busy people. We offer convenient evening, weekend, and morning sessions. We believe “working in a session of counseling” should be as easy as working in a set at the gym. You shouldn’t have to put your life on hold to take time for your personal development.
Insurance
Why don’t we participate with insurance companies?
Your information remains in your control. When insurance companies provide payment directly to the provider who renders services to the insured, the insurance company is entitled to copies of the records kept by the therapist to prove medical necessity. They don’t often ask for these records, but they can.
You may not be “mentally ill.” There is no shame in having a mental illness. In fact, more than 20% of the population has at least one. However, many people come to therapy to better cope with a situation or life challenge. If this is you, and you’re not technically “ill”, your insurance may refuse to pay and you may not know until you have had several sessions. You are then responsible for all of the payments. It is also common practice for the therapist to search for enough symptoms to justify a mental illness diagnosis so that the client can get help through their insurance for the stressors that may significantly reduce their quality of life. This means that 1. You now have a documented mental health diagnosis in your record and 2. If your insurance company decides that they want to audit your files, they may decide that there wasn’t truly enough to justify the diagnosis and they can legally take back all of the payments they made on your behalf to your therapist. You are then responsible for paying for all of the sessions you have had while thinking those sessions were going to be covered!
If you are documented to have a mental illness by a provider who shares your information with your insurance company- this information becomes part of your complete medical record. This means that if you are enlisting in the military, are a medical professional, have a professional license, are applying for security clearance, are applying for life insurance, etc., you may be asked if you have ever been diagnosed with a mental illness. You would be obliged to answer honestly, as your medical records with insurance companies may reviewed.
Particular risk to couples. Firstly, many insurance policies do not cover family or couples counseling. When this is a covered benefit and the therapist bills to the insurance company, one person must become the identified patient and that person must be diagnosed with a mental illness for the relational counseling to be covered. This means that one partner could be at a disadvantage when custody is contentious. Even though the aim of counseling was to help the family heal or to be at their best, the person who was diagnosed with a mental illness could have that used against them in court.
There are many, many more reasons. Outlined are the things that usually affect the client most often. However, it is also the case that it is not unusual for a therapy practice to be out of pocket more than 120 days while waiting for reimbursement. It is hard to run a functional business when everyone is working hard, but the money isn’t coming in. It is also the case that more and more, insurance companies have problems internally with their software and customer service cannot identify or fix this issue. This means that both the client and the practice is having to make multiple calls and suffer multiple “manual adjustments” that don’t ensure smooth billing and payment. It stinks to have received 15 sessions of therapy with a $20 copay and then have the insurance company suddenly insist that you have to pay $50 going forward, even though your policy clearly states that you have a $20 copay and it had worked that way for months. This is often not an easy fix.
Everyone wants a taste! When therapists deal directly with insurance companies, they have to pay a portion of the cost of the insurance company’s software. These clearinghouses cost anywhere from $30-$100 a month and the more insurance companies the practice accepts, the more of those clearinghouses they must belong to. This is in addition to having the required software on the therapist’s side that talks to the clearinghouses.
The time can be better spent elsewhere. Instead of spending an extra 10 hrs per week on billing, fighting with insurance companies, emailing clients that insurance is not paying what they agreed to, etc., therapists can concentrate on their own professional development, creating content specifically for you to help between sessions, and all kinds of other cool things!!
Contact
Questions? Please contact me for further information.