This is a great question and one I hear frequently. If you find yourself experiencing any of these symptoms regularly, it’s likely that counseling would be helpful to you:
Counseling/Therapy can help you identify and strengthen your positive qualities, provide support during a transition, help you understand and break negative patterns, help you gain perspective on a situation, solve a problem or heal from emotional wounds or upsetting experiences. Therapy can also help you understand yourself better and become more conscious of how your history, perceptions, feelings, attitudes and behavior patterns influence how you relate to others and move through the world. Therapy can help you understand yourself better, grow as an individual and within the context of your relationships.
I do not participate in network with any health insurance plans. I do my very best to offer quality counseling services without the rules and regulations placed on YOUR therapy by the insurance company (see more information why in the next section). Here are my current service fees as of 10/1/24:
As a way to offer even more accessibility to services, I am a provider with Open Path Psychotherapy Collective. Clients who register with Open Path can receive services for as low as $40.00 per session. Please see the Open Path site for details: https://openpathcollective.org/client/
You pay for insurance and you should be able to use it. I agree 100%. However, the insurance company gets all the say in how much they will pay and in some instances, how many sessions you can attend. I must provide a diagnosis that becomes part of your medical record and your progress in treatment is decided by the insurance company. The insurance company can dictate when your counseling is over and stop paying for your services. With self-pay, you and I decide how often and for how long we need to meet. In fact, most insurance companies now push for 45 minute sessions or less!
In most cases, your insurance coverage comes with a deductible. That’s the amount of money you have to pay out of pocket before your insurance pays anything. If you have a high deductible, you’ll still have to pay a significant portion of your treatment bills before insurance will cover anything.
As a self-pay client you are often able to pay much less than your out of pocket deductible costs. Unless you have other medical expenses that will eat up some of your deductibles, having insurance pay for treatment doesn’t guarantee you’ll save any money. I can usually offer a significantly lower rate to self-pay clients and you get the freedom to attend sessions as needed without fear of the insurance company denying services.
When you use insurance to pay for therapy, your therapist is required to provide your diagnosis and may be required to provide treatment notes to your insurance company in order to get paid. This undermines the basic premise of therapy and also gives a lot more people access to private health information about you.
Under the law, health care providers need to give patients who don’t have insurance or who are not using insurance an estimate of the bill for medical items and services.
● You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost of any non-emergency items or services. This includes related costs like medical tests, prescription drugs, equipment, and hospital fees.
● Make sure your health care provider gives you a Good Faith Estimate in writing at least 1 business day before your medical service or item. You can also ask your health care provider, and any other provider you choose, for a Good Faith Estimate before you schedule an item or service.
● If you receive a bill that is at least $400 more than your Good Faith Estimate, you can dispute the bill.
● Make sure to save a copy or picture of your Good Faith Estimate. For questions or more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate, visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises or call 800-985-3059.
Copyright © 2024 Robert Esselink, M.Ed., MA, LLPC, CADC - All Rights Reserved.
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