It's been a few years since I have been a provider for any insurance company and I will continue to run my practice free of insurance. This tends to turn some clients away and freaks some therapists out.
Taking insurance can increase the amount of clients one sees but it also limits what therapeutic modalities you can use and bill for, limits how long your sessions can be, and how often you can see your clients. Then add on you will HAVE to provide, at minimum, a diagnosis for the client. At minimum. Some insurance companies require that the client periodically, like every other session, to complete a questionnaire that the therapist then fax's into the insurance company. Depending upon how the client completed it and what happened to them between sessions a phone call between the insurance company and the therapist may be required. During that phone call the insurance company may want even more or your personal information. (I had this happen many years ago. In between sessions something happened that really upset my client, he handled it and when he came back in he was fine, but in completing the form he was honest about how he HAD been and the insurance tried to convince me to hospitalize him despite the crisis was a week done and over with.)
I also don't take any Employee Assisted Programs. Sometimes for some EAP companies the sessions were very confidential just between myself and the client. Other times, especially if it had been a company referral the EAP company (who is contracted by your employer and not actually a direct part of the company you work for) they want all kinds of information and will directly demand what your therapists does and how they do it. Sometimes an EAP company would make a referral, the client would be approved for 2 sessions in which the client would tell all their emotional stuff and then I had to refer them on to ANOTHER therapist for counseling. Really? They open up to me and I'm not allowed to help fix what's bothering them, someone else has too? So then they have to go open up to yet ANOTHER therapist??
Insurance companies and EAP require a "treatment plan" to be created by the therapist and client which is supposed to take 1-2 sessions to create before the work can be done. So you are now 2 sessions, 2 co-payments, and twice you've had to drive to see your therapist before they can even begin the work you are paying them for. Yeah my dentist doesn't do that, I go in, my teeth get cleaned, if they find a problem we set up another appointment to fix it and usually by appointment #2 I'm done, and it's not co-payment after co-payment.
Let's map this out with insurance/EAP. Let's say your co-payment is $35. So $70 is just to set up the treatment plan, you and the therapist haven't even had a chance to start fixing the problem at hand. Now most counseling takes 6-9 months once a week or maybe once every 2 weeks. So that's $70 a month (let's shoot for the every other week) for 6-9 months. So you will be with your therapist for about 50 minutes but you also need to account in the drive to and from their office
every other week. Most therapists out there are not trained in RRT, so likely your having cognitive behavioral therapy sessions. Since I used to do CBT and not am an exclusive RRT therapist CBT looks like a band-aid put onto a gaping wound that really needs stitches done by an expert plastic surgeon so like you will know you have a wound there but you and no one else can see the after effects of that cut any more. (Yeah I and that expert plastic surgeon when it comes to clearing trauma! No I have no idea how to do breast implants of nose jobs!! LOL) Also you will have to continue to live with the emotional distress of what's bothering through out that 6-9 months of sessions, with the possibility of those painful emotions getting worse before they get better.
Financially that works out to (JUST CO-PAYMENTS not gas prices here) $420 for 6 months, $490 for 7 months, $560 for 8 months, and $630 for 9 months. Oh and add in the extra time to get to and from those appointments every other week, emotional self may get worse before better...When you take your car in to the mechanic does it take 6-9 months every other week to get the problem fixed and your car running smoothly? If you have an experienced, educated, honest mechanic no it does not.
When my clients come to see me usually we've already started creating the solution to the problem before they even see me face to face. My office manager (Delores) has usually spoken to them to assess if RRT will be beneficial for them and then given me a synopsis of what's been going on so that then when they see me face to face I have already started to see where I'm going with the session. We then review a few things, quickly agree upon where we're going and then get there all in one session. Yes ONE session that is scheduled for 3 hours gives us enough time to clear one amazing thing.
Now the mind is an amazingly powerful thing so maybe a client had been raped when they were 16, had a horrific car accident at 21. We may get one trauma done and cleared and the other in another session that will be scheduled for 3 hours also but likely won't take the full three hours...But that's 2 sessions, not 6-9 months.
Yes I work way outside the box of normal therapy. How ever people walk out feeling relieved, lighter, and grateful for trying something different. How do I know this? Because my office manager and I follow up with my clients and because they refer their family and friends. That's MY biggest referral source; word of mouth.
Now it's your turn...do the math. 1-3 sessions or 6-9 months of sessions?
Be well, Be happy-
Tara S. Dickherber, LPC
Senior Certified Practitioner in Rapid Resolution Therapy®
Pin It
