Fees and Insurance

Journey is a self-pay practice.

We do not accept any insurance payments or plans. 

You may ask your provider for a superbill or receipt to apply for out-of-network reimbursement from your insurance company if they provide such benefits, but how much they cover will vary depending on the situation. Your therapist cannot guarantee any reimbursement and will communicate their session fee to you up front; it is then up to you and your therapist to decide how often you attend sessions and for how long. We understand that financial constraints are real (we have them too!), and we do not set our fees lightly. 

Why We Don’t Take Insurance

Cost

• Keeping our overhead costs as low as possible allows us to pay our therapists rates that reflect their education, training, time, and expertise. To file with insurance as a practice, we would have to pay a full-time staff member who was devoted solely to calling insurance companies, filling out paperwork, filing and refiling claims, accepting payments, and more. This cost would be passed along to our therapists and indirectly to you as the client. 

• Insurance companies do not reimburse mental/behavioral health professionals per their actual rates; rather each company uses their own specific formula to determine how much they pay a clinician (and this is often much less than our actual hourly rate). Many insurance-based practices make up for this reduced income by requiring their therapists to see a high number of clients per week, creating an environment that can lead to therapist burnout and fatigue. 

• Insurance companies dictate the number of counseling sessions or type of treatment a client receives. Even following these guidelines, clinicians commonly experience a “clawback” where the insurance company demands payments be returned due to a change in company policy. There are practices that have had to close due to clawbacks. 

Time

• Filing with insurance companies means countless hours spent on the phone, emailing back and forth, completing specific treatment plans, filling out and re-filling out paperwork, etc, with or without a full-time person handling insurance billing. We would much rather spend that time consulting with other clinicians, furthering our education and training, and taking care of ourselves so we can show up fully present and do excellent work. 

Client autonomy

• When you file with insurance, your insurance company gets to decide how many sessions you need and what kinds of treatment they will pay for. This is based partially upon your receiving a diagnosis from the American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5 (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual) or the World Health Organization’s ICD-10 (International Classification of Diseases). We do not believe all clients who wish to receive counseling services qualify for DSM-5/ICD-10 diagnoses, but we don’t want to turn away clients because they do not qualify and we definitely won’t commit insurance fraud (and falsify your medical records!) by saying you qualify for a diagnosis when you don’t. However, without a diagnosis, most insurance companies will not pay for therapy. 

• We don’t think your insurance company should get to decide how often you come to therapy, what kinds of treatment options are available to you, how your therapy sessions are structured, or how long you receive treatment for. We believe those decisions should be made by YOU, in conjunction with your therapist. 

Client privacy

• Insurance companies routinely require audits of client charts, meaning the insurance company has access to your private health information.

• If you use an insurance policy from your workplace, that means at least one person who works for your employers knows you are receiving mental health treatment; depending on company practices, they may have access to other information about you and your mental health including whatever diagnoses have been assigned to you. 

The cost of self-pay therapy 

Investing in yourself is money well spent. In finding solutions/healing for mental health issues, you may realize that your productivity is enhanced as your abilities improve. Investing the time and money in self-improvement now will pay off tenfold in the future. 

While treatment can feel costly at times, seeking relief in other forms besides therapy or counseling (such as relying on drugs/alcohol or retail therapy, for example) will result in higher costs and more emotional and physical detriment in the long term. 

We are dedicated to providing you with a toolbox that you can use for the rest of your life, regardless of how much time we spend working together. You don’t have to view your treatment as a lifelong commitment to weekly therapy sessions, but as an investment of your time and money now that will make a significant difference for the rest of your life.

We aim to make therapy as accessible and affordable as possible while recognizing that our clinicians are specialists in their field with advanced degrees and training. We want you to have healthy and functional relationships, heal and recover from previous psychological/emotional wounds, and have the tools to change your life. We are proud to create an environment, for clinicians and for clients, that makes this work possible.