One of the first questions we are often asked when someone calls our office is “Do you take my insurance?” It’s always hard for us to say no, but we’ve put a lot of thought into our decision to remain a self-pay practice. Here is some background for why we made that choice, and what we do instead to make coaching and counseling affordable for ALL of our clients.
We Want to Focus on Working With You, Rather Than Your Insurance
It can take up to a year (or more) to be approved by each individual insurance company, and not only does the clinic need to be approved, but each caregiver does as well.
On average, it can take about 100 hours of work with EACH company to go through this process. As a small practice with only 2 providers, currently, we simply do not have the time to make sure that we are covered on all of the different insurance providers in Utah. We would much rather be providing services for our clients!
We Do Not Want to Limit the Number of Clients We Can See
Filing insurance claims can be a very lengthy process as well. Without the means to hire someone to handle this for us, we would be spending many hours each week working on paperwork – and limiting the number of clients we see as a result.
Many times claims are rejected, creating a need for more time to make sure our clients are taken care of. Again, we would rather be working with you, not your insurance company!
We Don’t Want to Charge More for Our Services
Many insurance companies do not cover mental health, do not cover it completely, or only cover a certain number of visits per year. Also to charge insurance, we have to charge insurance rates that are standardized across industries, which is higher than what we currently charge for a session.
The increased rates we would need to charge to cover the costs of taking insurance means that the average client would incur an increased annual out of pocket cost between $600- $1350 MORE than what our clients pay now, paying out of pocket!*
Our current cost per session is $60-$75. If we charged insurance, our session charge would need to be raised to approximately $120-$150 per session so we can be covered by insurance and cover the overhead that would come with billing insurance (rent, time, employee to file the claims, etc). Also if the insurance does not provide the right coverage then you would pay the difference between your co-pay and our more expensive price. Based on our experience, this tends to cost more out of pocket than what our current pricing is.
We are committed to providing quality coaching and counseling at a price that works for more people, and we have a variety of solutions to help people have access to coaching and counseling.
We Have a Variety of Payment Options Designed to Work With You and Your Needs
First, we focus all of our time and energy on our clients. What that means is that you get more of us! We love working with you and keeping our focus on providing great coaching and counseling.
We both offer a sliding scale for clients who truly cannot afford our full rate of $60/$75 per session. We also offer discounts for pre-paid packages of sessions. And, we work with you if you’re having trouble covering the cost but really need to spend time with us.
In these ways, we can make our services affordable, and make your experience the best it can possibly be.
For more information about us, our package discounts, or to learn how affordable our services can be, schedule a 30-minute consultation with us today.
*Estimate based on typical client coming in weekly for 50 weeks out of the year and paying a $30/co-pay for 30 visits, and having to pay cash for the remaining visits at an increased rate.
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