Why Private Pay?
Working with a private pay mental health professional helps restore autonomy stripped by standardized care. As a client, private pay allows you:
more privacy within your care
client-centered care as services are not confined to the limitations of insurance or standardized practices
flexibility within your growth, healing and progress
As a clinician, private pay allows me to enrich your care by permitting a smaller caseload. A smaller caseload increases my bandwidth to attuned to you and your care needs, permits more thoughtful exploration of your challenges to create personalized skill to help you overcome or manage obstacles, provides me with work-life balance that permits nervous system regulation so we can co-regulate and I can be truly present during our sessions, and gives me a greater bandwidth to collaborate with those involved in your wellness.
I adhere to my values to make therapeutic care affordable and accessible by accepting a limited number of sliding scale clientele and offering Superbills for those who would like to submit documentation for potential insurance reimbursement. Please feel free to reach out with any questions to see if I’m an ideal fit for you and your care needs!
Privacy
Standardized care ensures your Private Health Information (PHI) is protected under HIPAA . However, HIPAA does not protect your PHI from your employer. You can learn more here: HIPAA GUIDE
Private pay allows those who work within organizations or lines of work to ensure additional privacy when seeking care by keeping health records separate from medical records stored through insurance providers. When choosing to work with a private pay therapist, you are not forced into a diagnosis upon intake and if you receive a diagnosis, it is not automatically included in your health record via your insurance coverage.
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Government workers, business executives and owners, lawyers, specialized physicians, financial advisors, medical and mental health care workers, crisis intervention workers, public safety and first responders are just a few examples of professions in which one may consider to opt for private pay in order to ensure their mental health information is private and out of the reach of current and potential employers.
Client-centered
Flexibility
Extended sessions, EMDR intensives, Walk & Talk therapy, and couples/relational therapy without diagnosis are among the flexible service options I provide.
Utilizing a holistic model means I extend beyond mental wellness to include the physical, emotional, social, spiritual, environmental and financial dimensions impacting you. This gives way to exploration of purpose, building resilience, fostering a sense of fulfillment and approaching self-actualization.
Additionally, private pay allows you to return to services as you need it, add extended or intensive sessions determined by your readiness, and fluctuate cost of services based on your financial situation.
Examples of flexible care:
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Through a harm-reduction model, I can provide support through exploration of safe and supportive practices to clients implementing micro dosing regiments, engaging in self-administered journeys/macro doses, or looking to integrate experiences completed beyond primary psychedelic-assisted facilitations.
I collaborate with psychedelic facilitators to ensure you can effectively continue to process your psychedelic experiences.
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Private pay for couples/relational work can focus on relational issues.
No required diagnosis/es for any participants and frequency is based on relational needs and bandwidth.
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Private pay allows me to tailor costs to client’s unique and flexing financial situations.
Sliding scale options to reduce full fee rates help accommodate your financial circumstances as needed.
Avoid stigmatization
When you decide to pay for services through private pay and forgo Superbills, you sidestep insurance requirements requiring diagnoses for treatment or reimbursement of services. This allows increased openness to really explore and get to the root of your challenges without the added weight of “how will this impact my future insurance coverage or medical care?”, “what if my employer finds out I’m going to therapy to treat or manage ”, “will my other providers treat me differently if I’m diagnosed with ”.
Private pay allows you and I to have a therapeutic discussion to determine if diagnosis is necessary for the care you are seeking and the pros and cons of diagnosing vs not, formal diagnosing and ways to provide you the care you deserve with or without diagnosis.
Private pay allows your practitioner to ensure state, federal and organization requirements governing your care are met without the added layers of administrative tasks created by insurance requirements. This gives way to sessions feeling more natural and centered on your care needs.
It encourages discussion between client and therapist to determine type of care received, duration, frequency, completion of services and if diagnosis/es of some kind is important to care without a silent, third-party participate weighing in. It also allows you to return to services as needed to prevent decompensation, support progress and intermittently engage in services as needed.
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While increased access to care is vital and has been significantly increased through the inclusion of mental health services being covered by insurance, using insurance can have drawbacks.
If you’ve ever had to dispute a rejected claim or even confirm benefits of your coverage, you can reasonably assume insurance can be a hassle for both insured parties and health providers.
Insurance companies go beyond state, federal and professional organizations requirements to determine approval of services. This means while you might greatly benefit from support, your insurance provider can significantly impact the type and quality of care you receive. It can even become the barrier for accessing services.
Insurance coverage can impact session structure, care type, frequency, duration and determine completion as determined by your insurance provider. Insurance utilizes the pathologized model for care, labeling you as “unhealthy” in some way and requires a diagnosis upon intake to justify covering services.
The reality is, life’s challenges don’t always manifest as a clinical diagnosis. The pathology model’s focus on identifying and treating “mental illness” can overlook the complete picture of mental wellness and the nuances that contribute to life’s challenges and their impacts on our lives.
Some examples of impacts:
Strict documentation requirements result in forced structure. The need to assess and assign diagnosis/es and complete a comprehensive Mental Health Assessment results in first appointments being designated to collecting information, thus influencing the relationship development between therapist and client.
Insurance providers have authority to deny claims, refuse to cover services, or determine the who you can work with and the length, frequency and type of service (sometimes despite recommendations from medical providers) the insurance plan will cover. Changes in insurance providers or policy can also impact services. This can result in unexpected terminations/discharges from services, inadequate support, or mismatched therapist/client dynamics.
Health providers must spending more time managing and collecting claims, auditing paperwork, and managing insurance panelling requirements, directing attention away from your direct care.
Behind the scenes, your insurance provider may request your Personal Health Information (PHI) to audit health records. This means in addition to your diagnosis being a permanent part of your health record, your assigned insurance audit agent is assessing your session notes.
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If you are interested in seeking insurance reimbursement, it is important we discuss as such so I am able to ensure your documentation meets insurance requirements (such as assigning a diagnosis).
I provide Superbills as a way to adhere to my values in increasing access to care while eliminating hurdles previously encountered when I accepted insurance. Reimbursement is only applicable for the first hour of services and I cannot guarantee your insurance carrier will reimburse services. Please contact your insurance provider to explore coverage limits, deductibles, etc.
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In short, prior work accepting insurance demonstrated insurance companies’ practices and impacts shaping the mental health field do not align with my practices as a provider and hindered more than helped for the type of flexible, person-centered care I provide.