Our therapists all explicitly hold a healing and growth orientation to psychotherapy services, rather than a pathology-focused orientation, and see the primary vehicle of change as the corrective experiences in the therapeutic relationship rather than any one theory or set of techniques. Our therapists receive ongoing state of the art support in providing effective psychotherapy to children, teens, adults, romantic relationships & couples and families. This support goes beyond standard continuing education, and includes weekly consultation, deliberate practice support, routine outcome measurement and client feedback informed practices, and a focus on competency-focused professional development.

Additionally, our providers are committed to trauma-healing-informed, culturally inclusive and affirmative services to all NC residents, especially those historically marginalized and under-served who belong to the LGBTQ+, Black/African American, Latino, Asian and Pacific Islander, Neurodiverse, Kink, Poly/ENM, Disabled, Senior Citizen, and Formerly Imprisoned communities.

Your first experience will be a free brief consult with the provider to determine if the fit is good before completing any consent documentation. Once you complete consent documentation and verify your insurance benefits (if using health insurance), your first appointment will be focused on compassionately understanding the issues bringing you to therapy, and letting you and the provider get to know each other better with regards to what is needed for the therapy. You will be sent some questionnaires after that session for focused and rapid assessment purposes, and will then collaboratively set therapeutic goals and tasks with your provider. Compassion and collaboration is our priority at every stage and step.

Therapy services are usually scheduled weekly for 55-minute sessions during the first 3-6 months of services, and frequency can be reduced once a client has been stablized if a client wishes. Service satisfaction feedback is explicitly invited every 3 months, and clinical re-assessment of a client's life and situation, treatment needs, goals and tasks are scheduled every 6 months. Until services are concluded. We are prepare for long-term services, but aim to conclude treatment as early as our clients hope for.

Most of our providers are in-network with plans from health insurance companies including Blue Cross Blue Shield (Only PPO, Indemnity, & Blue Care HMO plans at this time), Aetna, Medcost and the North Carolina State Employees Health Plan, and some are participating Medicare providers (please check with each provider). Those in-network providers who accept your benefits, which we file for you for covered services addressing covered conditions. In these situations, you are only responsible for co-payments, co-insurance, deductibles and out of pocket maximums specified by your insurance plans' mental health benefits.

Providers who are out-of-network with your plans either charge full fee or negotiate reduced out-of-pocket fees with you based on your needs within their reduced fee availabilities, and can provide “superbills” for you to file with your plan for reimbursement of covered services addressing covered conditions. Services such as Meet Nirvana and Mentaya can help you with filing for out of network reimbursements for a small fee (we have no business relationships with any of these vendors).

Counseling or therapy that considers a relationship between multiple people “the client” (i.e. a romantic couple or a family group) a target of intervention and the focus of treatment, is not currently a medical service, and is not currently covered by medical coding and billing. While we believe that this service should considered a billable service for medical conditions (i.e. healthier romantic and family relationships equal healthier partners, parents and children), the medical coding establishment and the health insurance companies do not agree. This is an unfortunate fact of our current situation. However, all people in the relationship being treated (i.e. both romantic partners/spouses) hold joint confidentiality in this service.

When “family psychotherapy” (i.e. CPT Code 90847) is used, the focus is on one person as the client, and the focus of treatment is that person’s diagnosed condition. In these cases, a partner or family member is brought in to support the patient/client’s recovery plan, and not to address the needs of the partner or family member (and therefore, not address the needs of the relationship). Marriage therapy or what many people refer to as “couple therapy” is not appropriately captured by this service. Additionally, the person identified as “patient” in this service holds sole confidentiality of the treatment record, and "collateral" have no rights or privileges to records.

We recognize that some therapists outside of this practice will bill medical codes for family therapy for relationship and marriage therapy, but we do not in order to avoid risks and confusion about rights to confidentiality and records, negative financial impacts to clients due to record audits, and accusations of improper, unethical or fraudulent actions.

All of our providers charge a fair market full fee of $250/55-minutes, but each provider is permitted to reduce their fees in order to accommodate serving clients who cannot afford the full fee. Please see each provider’s lowest allowed fee, and consult with your provider about reduced fee options. We aim to be as accessible as possible for a wide variety of clientele while acknowledging and asking when feasible for our providers' financial worth and value to be met. We believe the services they provide are worth the investment.

All services are valued the same per/55-minutes as we value our providers' time-in-service as the unit of value. While health insurance value different services and different professional licenses differently, we value our providers commonly as exceptional licensed psychotherapy practitioners (including licensed associates, as they pay for and receive intensive weekly supervision by certified licensed supervisors).

Any services not covered by Medicare or insurance that are paid for out-of-pocket (i.e. relationship therapy) are often tax-deductible expenses (please consult your personal tax professional). We will provide you statements of expenses and payments as needed.

All fees for services are to be paid in full the date of service. We do not allow any out-of-pocket or co-pay/co-insurance/deductible balances to be carried by the practice. We only accept payment be secure card transactions (via Stripe in our Electronic Health Record - Simple Practice) at this time, and a payment card is kept securely on file by all clients.