I also offer a sliding fee. Contact me to apply.
I don’t currently accept insurance, but I offer superbills, which your insurance may accept for reimbursement. Most insurance companies will apply counseling services towards your out-of-pocket deductible.
Insurance providers require a diagnosis, since I work with teens and young adults I don’t like to add a label to our clients permanent record when sometimes it’s a temporary situation that resolves with time and maturity.
Insurance providers determine their own reimbursement rates, usually about 60% of a counselor’s out-of-pocket rate. Which means many counselors have to take on more clients each week. This can cause work-life balance issues and decrease self care for your counselor. This can lead to ethical concerns because counselors need to take care of themselves before they can care for others.
Insurance providers can audit a counselor’s files without additional consent, which means your therapy notes may be seen by a non-therapist and we cannot protect the information once it’s out of our hands.
Insurance providers can dictate how a counselor can provide care to a client. They will only reimburse for what they consider “evidence based practices” which means they may refuse to pay for specialty areas of care. Since we use multiple modalities of counseling it could restrict therapeutic care from your counselor.
Insurance providers can deny claims, delay payment, or retroactively deny claims (even years later), and require money to be paid back. If this happens the client is ultimately responsible for the cost.
Insurance providers require added overhead costs from Balance Counseling and Wellness due to claims processing, follow-up inquiries, and the hoops they require for all of the above requirements.
