Why does therapy cost so much?

Insurance companies decide how much they think a 60 minute therapy session is worth and reimburse your therapist for that amount. Different insurance companies reimburse at different rates. Your insurance company also determines your copay; your copay is collected alongside the reimbursement and often does not make up the full amount your therapist charges as a base rate. Your copay payments go toward your deductible (the amount of money determined by the insurance company that you have to pay before they cover more of your healthcare costs). After your deductible is met, many clients have no copay; other clients have coinsurance (a percentage of costs determined by your insurance company).

The base service rates at Chroma Counseling are created in order to receive the maximum reimbursement from insurance companies! For example, if an insurance company decides they’re willing to reimburse your therapist for $108 for a 60 minute session, they will only pay that amount if your therapist charges $108 or more for their time with you. Most clients will not ever pay this full amount because they will either have insurance coverage or will be able to access our sliding scale self-pay options. 

For more information on how insurance works, we suggest this article: https://www.thebalance.com/how-does-health-insurance-work-3306069

Sliding Scale Rates

Therapy is an investment you make to work toward improving your mental health. As a general rule, base session prices reflect this in order to encourage both you and your therapist to take your time together seriously. 

However, we are also strongly of the belief that mental health therapy should be accessible to all people, regardless of income or insurance coverage. As such, Chroma Counseling offers reduced out-of-pocket rates for any income up to 500% of the federally established poverty rate. We also offer a greater out-of-pocket discount rate for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) as part of this agency’s dedication to righting the inequities BIPOC face on a regular basis as a direct result of systemic white supremacy. 

If you are interested in accessing these rates, please mention this in your contact email to schedule your initial appointment!

Chart of sliding scale rates. Click to see a larger version, or please email if this image is not accessible to you!

No shows and late cancellations

Most healthcare agencies have a policy around late cancellations and missed appointments. These policies are generally created to encourage communication from clients when they are unable to make their appointments. For small businesses, missed appointments can drastically impact a practitioner’s income since we only get paid for the hours we spend with clients!

That being said, Chroma Counseling believes that many no show/late cancellation fees are inherently sexist, racist, classist, and ableist-- after all, the most frequent reasons clients miss appointments last minute are unreliable transportation, lack of child care, and unexpected illness. As such, Chroma Counseling has no missed appointment fees. 

We hope our clients recognize that their therapist depends on income from these sessions and that the more income our agency brings in every year, the more expansion and social justice work we can do as a practice!

If clients are interested in making a donation to the company when they have missed an appointment, they can do so here. These donations will help fund comfortable accommodations for clients, pro bono sessions for BIPOC during heightened periods of white violence, and an increase in donations to local mutual aid and charitable organizations.

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