SERVICES AGREEMENT
PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES
The goal of psychotherapy is to resolve personal difficulties through gaining a deeper understanding of yourself and your role in the relationships you have with other people. A variety of treatment modalities are integrated into the therapeutic process to assist you in understanding yourself and your relationships on a deeper level as well as acquire new skills, attitudes, and behaviors. The intended outcome is to live a happier, more fulfilling, and more productive life. It is important for you to know that psychotherapy can be challenging and uncomfortable at times as you will likely be discussing difficult aspects of your life, which may lead to experiencing feelings of sadness, anger, frustration, loneliness, and helplessness. These uncomfortable feelings are often necessary in leading you to the outcome of better relationships, solutions to certain problems, and reducing overall distress.
During the first few sessions, your therapist will be evaluating your needs and will communicate their thoughts and impressions with you. We will give you an overall idea of what our work together will look like and recommend how frequently we feel you should attend therapy. The success of the therapeutic process also depends largely on the relationship between the client and the therapist, and we encourage you to consider this as we begin our work together. Therapy is a commitment of time, money, and energy, so it is important that you feel comfortable and connected with the therapist you choose. If you do not feel your therapist is a good fit for you, please feel free to discuss this with us and we will provide you with a referral to a therapist who may be a better match.
SESSIONS
Your first appointment is an initial evaluation, which typically lasts 60 minutes. If you and your therapist agree to continue working together, you will typically meet once every week or once every other week, depending on your needs, although you may decide to meet more or less frequently. These sessions will each last 55-60 minutes unless otherwise specified and will be scheduled at a time you and your therapist agree on.
TELETHERAPY
At Restorative Healing Counseling & Psychotherapy, LLC, we offer teletherapy sessions. Teletherapy provides clients with services from the comfort, safety, and privacy of their own home. For teletherapy sessions, we use HIPAA compliant platforms called Doxy.me and Ring Central. During teletherapy sessions, your therapist is in a private space to maintain your confidentiality. To further maintain your own confidentiality, we highly recommend that you, as the client, also conduct teletherapy sessions in a private space where no one else can hear your session. Utilizing earbuds or headphones is recommended.
CONTACTING US
You may contact us by phone at (847) 492-2121. We return voicemail messages during office hours. If you have a matter that is urgent, please indicate this in your message along with your phone number, and we will return your call at our first possible opportunity. However, if you are having a life-threatening emergency, you must call 9-1-1 or go directly to your nearest hospital emergency room.
If you wish to communicate with your therapist via email or text, we will only do so if you indicated permission by checking for yes elsewhere in this document. Please refer to our terms of emailing and texting, also indicated elsewhere in this document.
PROFESSIONAL FEES
Our hourly fee is $175 for an Initial Evaluation and $150 for Individual and Family Therapy sessions.
We require a 24 hours notice to cancel an appointment. Missed sessions and sessions cancelled within less than 24 hours notice will be charged a fee of $100. Please keep in mind that insurance companies cannot be billed for missed sessions, so this fee will be charged to you directly.
In addition to our scheduled sessions, we may charge for other services you come to need at the rate of $150/hour, and we will prorate this cost if such services require work for periods of less than an hour. These services include report-writing, letters we are asked to provide, travel times for meetings you request we attend, phone conversations lasting more than 5 minutes, and any other services we may agree on.
PAYMENT POLICY
Payment for services is due at the time of service via cash, check, or credit card. Any check returned for insufficient funds will result in an additional $30 fee per occurrence. Adult clients and parents/guardians of minor clients are personally responsible for payment of services unless otherwise indicated, in which case signed consent will be needed for us to communicate with the person who is responsible for payment. This consent will be for us to communicate with the third party only in regards to payment.
INSURANCE COVERAGE
At Restorative Healing Counseling & Psychotherapy, LLC we are contracted in-network providers with BlueCross BlueShield – PPO, United Healthcare, Optum, and Cigna. We are out-of-network with all other insurance plans, but you are welcome to use your out-of-network coverage for therapy sessions with us. We utilize Redeemed Billing to handle all of our billing matters. We will gladly have Redeemed Billing verify your insurance coverage for therapy sessions, and they will bill your insurance company for our services.
However, we cannot guarantee that your insurance will cover our services, so you should verify with your carrier that mental health outpatient services are covered and to what extent.
You are only expected to pay your deductible payment (if it applies) or co-pay at the time of service. If you are not using insurance, our full fee will be expected at the time of service.
If your insurance company denies payment for services, you are responsible for payment of those services. Fees not paid in a timely manner will result in discontinuation of services until the balance is paid in full.
LEGAL INVOLVEMENT
Our role in providing therapy does not include involvement in our clients’ legal matters. We will not serve as a witness for you in any litigation, including (but not limited to) divorce proceedings, child custody proceedings, personal injury matters, employment related matters, or any other matters that may bring you to court. By signing this agreement, you acknowledge that we will not be involved in any such proceedings. If we are served with a subpoena to testify, you will bear the legal fees of us having the subpoena quashed. If we are still required by court order to testify in regards to your legal matters, you will be expected to pay for all of our professional time, including preparation, attendance at any legal proceedings, and transportation costs, even if we are called to testify by another party. We charge $300/hour for such services.
LIMITS OF CONFIDENTIALITY
The information you share in therapy is confidential and will not be disclosed to a third party without your written consent. However, there are some exceptions as follows:
- If you are in imminent danger to yourself or another person, we are legally obligated to report this and disclose any information necessary to keep you or the other person safe.
- If you disclose information that leads us to suspect child abuse or elder abuse, we are legally obligated to report this.
- If we receive a court order to release information, we are obligated to honor it.
PROTECTED HEALTH INFORMATION AND HIPAA
Protected Health Information (PHI) under federal law refers to any information regarding health status, provision of healthcare, or payment for healthcare.
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) is a governing body of rules that keeps your health information as confidential and protected as possible. However, it does allow healthcare professionals and associated organizations (such as insurance companies) to utilize certain PHI for purposes of carrying out services and payment of those services. For example, in order to bill your insurance company, We must provide them with your name, identifying information, and diagnosis. The insurance company is also required to follow HIPAA to ensure your health information stays as protected as possible and only necessary information (as previously mentioned) will be disclosed for the sole purpose of which it is intended.
You should know we have a contract with a digital practice management company called TherapyNotes to do electronic billing, scheduling, and to keep electronic records. TherapyNotes is a HIPAA compliant organization. We also use Echo Billing Solutions, Inc. for all of our billing. Echo Billing Solutions will be handling your billing matters.
PROFESSIONAL RECORDS
The laws and standards of our profession require that we keep Protected Health Information (PHI) about you in your clinical record. You have the right to a copy of your clinical record if you request it in writing. Because these are professional records, they may be misinterpreted or upsetting to untrained readers. For this reason, we recommend you initially review them in the presence of your therapist or have them forwarded to another mental health professional so you can discuss the contents. There will be a handling fee plus a fee per page for medical records.
MINORS & PARENTS
Parents of child clients under 12 years of age are legally allowed to examine their child’s treatment records. Parents of child clients between the ages of 12 and 18 cannot examine their child’s records unless the child consents. This also applies to parents giving consent for us to speak with a third party, such as another healthcare professional or school personnel. Children 12 years of age and older must provide written consent in addition to their parents for us to speak with a third party outside of our treatment. Children who are 12 years and older do have the right to confidentiality in treatment. However, we feel parental involvement is often crucial to the successful outcome of psychotherapy. Therefore, we will provide parents with general information about the progress of treatment and will disclose certain additional treatment information to parents with the child’s consent. If we feel your child is in danger or is a danger to someone else, we will notify parents immediately. Before giving parents any additional information, We will first discuss the matter with the child, if possible, and handle objections he/she may have in an appropriate manner, considering what is in the best interest of the child.