Preparing for your First Visit

What to Expect?

Your therapist will contact you to schedule your first session. This session is called the Intake Session. Upon scheduling your first session, you will be informed of your insurance coverage for outpatient mental health services. You will be provided with information of your copay, deductible, and/or co-insurance obligation for each session. As well, you will be asked to bring the following to your first session:

• Your insurance card(s)
• Photo identification
• Completed information and signed consent forms
• Payment for copay, deductible, co-insurance (Cash or Check only)

Intake Session

The purpose of the Intake:

• To obtain specific information about the client's needs.
• To determine if therapy is medically necessary.
• If medically necessary, to offer a mental health diagnosis based on the information provided to justify the need for treatment.
• To determine if the therapist is the appropriate fit based on the client's presenting needs and concerns.
• Allow the client the opportunity to assess his/her comfort with the assigned therapist.

Generally, Intake Sessions occur in one meeting. However, there are instances where the Intake may extend over a few sessions. This most often occurs when the presenting issues are severe or the therapist feels he/she needs more time to offer diagnostic impressions and treatment recommendations. Intake Sessions are typically 55-60 minutes; however, this time may be extended depending on the presenting concerns.

Ongoing Treatment

After the completion of the Intake, the client and therapist will work together to establish a plan for treatment. This plan identifies specific goals that the client would like to work toward in therapy. A treatment plan assists with guiding treatment and offers a means to measure success in the achievement of treatment goals.

Treatment plans will be reviewed and updated at regular intervals as required by Managed Care and other insurance providers to monitor progress and medical necessity of the service. If you are a parent of a child/adolescent you will be included in the review of the treatment plan as well as some of your child's treatment sessions.

Generally, therapy sessions will be scheduled on a weekly basis. You and your therapist will determine the frequency of your sessions based on your identified needs and concerns. Each therapist handles his/her own scheduling and will work with you to schedule sessions on a regular basis. Individual and family sessions are typically 45-55 minutes in duration. Service fees may apply for sessions lasting longer than 60 minutes.

In order to maximize the potential benefits of psychotherapy, it is important that you attend your sessions as scheduled. Inconsistent attendance and long absences may prove to be counterproductive to the treatment process. We ask that you provide at least 24 hours notice if you need to cancel your session. A service charge of $65.00 will be applied to cancelations received less than 24 hours in advance of the session time (this fee is not covered by insurance). Payment of this service charge will be required at your next scheduled session.

Discharge from Services

There is no magic number of sessions or time in therapy when it comes to determining a client's readiness for discharge from services. Generally, a client is discharged from counseling upon successful achievement of treatment goals and demonstrated maintenance of new skills, healthier functioning, and/or effective coping strategies. Discharge is a collaborative decision between the clinician and client (and client's support systems, when appropriate). Readiness for discharge is subjective to the individual client and based on his/her measured success throughout the course of treatment.