Office Policies
We would be happy provide to you an initial consultation about the matter or matters that concern you.
We are committed to establishing a relationship with our clients that places them fully in charge of the counseling relationship. If we begin the work of counseling together, it will be you who decides whether or not to consult with us, for how long, and for the resolution of what issues. We are passionate about the protection of your right to choose, your right to discuss any personal information and to know that you are doing so in a sanctuary of client confidentiality, and your freedom to make for yourself all relevant decisions about the work you may wish to do and the kind of care you wish to receive.
For the reasons we have noted here, we are not and will never be under contract to any managed care insurance health plans. We are not “providers” for any HMOs, PPOs, or IPAs. We work for our clients and not for insurance companies nor our clients’ employers, and we will never let any such third parties dictate to our clients any of the terms or conditions of the counseling relationship, either covertly or overtly.
If you do have some insurance that might reimburse you for a portion of the fees we charge, we will certainly provide you the kind of documentation you will need in order to ask your carrier for what may be due to you. Securing reimbursement, however, will be your responsibility. And if you choose to file for insurance proceeds, we will be pleased to discuss with you some of the potentially detrimental consequences for your life that might flow from the decisions to use your “benefit.”
We understand that most of our clients are going to be paying for our service themselves. In order to make the process easier, we are prepared to negotiate a variety of payment plans and options.
The costs of counseling are usually much less than clients anticipate. Quite a number of life dilemmas are actually amenable to resolution in a single visit. Twenty-five sessions or less are sufficient to give significant relief to 80% of persons who seek consultation from us; fifty sessions or less will accommodate the needs of 90% of those who come in. The costs of professional attention for most, then, are probably a little more than the cost of orthodontia for a child, about the same as needing to get a reliable but inexpensive used car for a teenager, about the same as having to pay accounting fees for a complex tax audit, less than the retainers charged by divorce attorneys, and far less than a single year of private school tuition.
