No Mental Health Diagnosis goes on your medical record. When using insurance, a mental health diagnosis is required to be recorded in your medical record which may concern patients with certain sensitive jobs, or those buying life insurance or seeking other medical treatment.

Complete Confidentiality. When using insurance, your insurance company has the right to know the details of your therapy, including to see any therapy notes that exist. When you choose to pay yourself, your therapy is completely confidential, and the details of your therapy are only known by you and your therapy, not any third party.

Freedom in treatment. When using insurance, your insurance company can determine how may sessions you can receive, how long they are, what methods are used, which therapist you can see, and sometimes even the time of your session. When you pay yourself, you are in control of your own therapy and your therapist has the complete freedom to treat you as an individual. You get exactly what you need to reach your goals.

Here’s an important thing everyone with insurance needs to understand: Insurance companies use some “creative” ways to determine the basis of what they’ll cover. It’s not just that your plan says it’ll cover, say, 80% of the cost of psychotherapy — it’s 80% of what they say psychotherapy costs. That’s an important number.

(They get crafty about how they come up with that number, and even what they call it, by the way. Sometimes they use something called Usual, Customary, and Reasonable (“UCR”). Or reasonable market value… a number they can basically just make up. Or they’ll use a percentage of Medicare rates as the basis for how much they’ll pay — even if you aren’t eligible for Medicare, which is specially negotiated insurance for people 65 or older, younger people with disabilities, and people with End Stage Renal Disease.)

Keep in mind that they use that number — what they say psychotherapy costs — to calculate your reimbursement. For example, if your insurance plan says it covers 80% of psychotherapy fees, what that really means is they’ll pay 80% of what they say the typical fee for psychotherapy is.

The catch is that there are very few regulations for how they determine that number. And, they usually won’t tell you (their customer!) what that number even is — calling it “proprietary information.”

Good news, though! Thanks to numerous class action lawsuits, and legislative work on healthcare laws, there are consumer rights websites where you can see what an objective source says the typical fees are in your area.

The sites are Healthcare Bluebook and Fair Health Consumer. Here’s how to use it to look up the Typical Provider Charge (another term for UCR) for psychotherapy in our area:

1. 1. Enter our zipcode
   2. Enter the procedure code; 90834 is the procedure code for individual outpatient psychotherapy, 45 minutes, or you can ask your therapist what code they’ll use.
   3. If given an option, click “Out-of-Network Reimbursement.”
   4. Look for “Cost Breakdown” (ignore the first few rows you see on the page — those includes other charges like hospitalization).

There you have it! Now you know the real typical cost for psychotherapy in our area.

For those not wanting to do the legwork, Healthcare Bluebook listed a “Fair Price” for 45-minute outpatient therapy in Salina as $237 (Jan 2023).  

Here’s why: our philosophy is that psychotherapy is an investment in your future, like buying real estate or saving money in a 401K.  Just like those forms of investment, therapy can yield a great return on investment, so our associates charge accordingly. With that said, we realize that not everyone can afford to work with us.  We’re happy to refer you to other providers, agencies, and centers that can financially accommodate individuals that need sliding scale or reduced fee services.

Ascend does offer reduced rates for clergy and members of their family. Contact us for availability.

Due to legal and ethical requirements, patients are not allowed to carry account balances as doing so can muddy the waters of clinical work. This means that full payment is due at the time of service. For therapy, this means payment is due at the end of each session. For testing, this means payment is due when test administration concludes (and before the final feedback session).

You pay us directly and we provide you with a monthly statement of services (called a superbill).  Then, you submit  it to your insurance company if you decide to seek reimbursement through your insurance company’s out-of-network coverage. Your insurance company will process the superbill and will:

• apply the amount you’ve paid to chip away at your deductible, or
• reimburse you a percentage if you’ve already met the deductible

It is your responsibility to check your out-of-network coverage. Ascend Psychological Associates makes no guarantees that you’ll receive reimbursement (or how much reimbursement) from your insurance company.

Here’s a specific guide we created to help you determine and access your out-of-network coverage:

Out-of-Network Guide for New Patients 

We’re a private practice that seeks to offer high quality, individualized attention to each client and are firmly committed to each person’s privacy and confidentiality.  We cannot meet those goals being in-network with the majority of insurance companies.  We went into this field to help people, NOT help insurance companies and their investors make money.

However, if you don’t have Blue Cross/Blue Shield and would like to use your insurance you can still work with us. You would use your insurance’s out-of-network benefits. We will provide a superbill for you to send to your insurance company for reimbursement. For more information about this, see our handy guide: Out of Network Guide for Patients

We have partnered with Reimbursify for you to easily submit your claims for out-of-network health insurance reimbursement. Download the app to get started today.

For more information, see our page: Why Ascend Does Not (Usually) Accept Insurance