Counseling, Insurance & Fees
I am currently in network with the following insurance providers in Idaho:
Blue Cross of Idaho
Regence BlueShield of Idaho.
Mountain Health CO-OP
PacificSource
Select Health
St. Luke’s Health Plan
There is one obvious reason why people choose to use their health insurance to help pay for counseling. However, there are many reasons others choose to pay out of pocket for therapy— even if they have insurance. The list can be quite extensive, and it’s a bit of a complex topic. Ultimately up to you to decide whether or not you want to get your insurance involved. However, I implore you to consider the points I have outlined below and do your own research before you decide. My wish for you is that you are up to speed and informed on your choices so that you can proceed in whichever option makes most sense for you.
Benefits of using your insurance for therapy include:
It usually saves you money. You may have a copay (depending in your insurance company/type and services received), but your insurance will usually cover the bulk of the service.
Insurance companies cannot charge you more/deny you coverage if you have a pre existing diagnosis. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law in 2010, prevents insurance companies from removing your coverage or charging you more because of your diagnosis (this includes substance use diagnoses). There are many other protective measures put into place by the ACA, and I encourage you to check them out. Admittedly, this point outlines more so the benefits of the Affordable Care Act, not insurance specifically, but it’s worth knowing that if you do receive a mental health diagnosis, your insurance company cannot completely screw you over, legally speaking.
Drawbacks of using your insurance for therapy include:
Diagnosis is required. You must receive a mental health diagnosis from your therapist in order for your insurance to cover your therapy sessions. Without a mental health diagnosis, your insurance will not deem your counseling “medically necessary” and will not cover services. Your mental health diagnosis will now be on your health record forever, and may negatively impact your ability to qualify for certain jobs, your ability to serve in the military, and/or your ability to qualify for life insurance/higher monthly rates for life insurance. Of course, having a diagnosis does not mean that you are 100% guaranteed to be limited in these specific ways, and there may be workarounds for some of these concerns, but it is a realistic barrier worth considering.
Loss of privacy for the therapy participant. Insurance companies are businesses, and so of course they will try to save money when and where they can. They perform audits on mental health practitioners in an attempt to monitor whether or not the services they provide are in fact “medically necessary” for therapy participants. This means that your insurance company will have access to detailed records about your mental health and the things that you are working through in therapy. The therapeutic relationship between practitioner and participant is no longer confidential— it now includes the insurance company, too.
Loss of agency for the therapy participant. Just because your insurance company agreed to cover your therapy initially, that does not mean that they will agree to continually cover your therapy in the long run. For the same reasons outlined in the point above, your therapist has to constantly and consistently present a case to your insurance company outlining reasons why you would benefit from continued services. The insurance company has the authority to put a cap on number of sessions covered, limit session time, and maintain access to your detailed mental health records. This inherently undermines your autonomy as a therapy participant as insurance ultimately gets the final say on therapy decisions.
Insurance companies do not cover many approaches to mental health healing. There are numerous approaches to therapy which are incredibly powerful, healing, and culturally significant but which are not covered by insurance companies because they do not fit the medical lens adopted by insurance companies. This limits the type of therapy you may have access to as a participant, even if those types of therapy may be a better fit for the healing you are seeking.
You may have to wait to get access to therapists available to you if you go through your insurance. Not every mental health practitioner is going to be credentialed with your insurance company, so you run the risk of getting put on a waitlist once you do find a therapist who seems like the right fit for you. For some folks, waiting to get into therapy is not that big of an inconvenience, but that is definitely not the case for everyone.
This is not an all-inclusive list of the pros and cons of involving insurance, the DSM V, and the medical model of mental health. At the end of the day, you are the only one who gets to decide if you use your insurance or not, and although the list of benefits of using your insurance is short and sweet, that doesn’t make the list any less significant. We all know how important it is to have accessible, affordable care, and for many people today this is made possible through their insurance providers.
Fees for Services
Consultation Call (15 minutes) - FREE
Intake (Initial) Session (60 minutes) - $160
Individual Counseling (53 minutes) - $135
Get started with Rhiannon, today.
Sources
Affordable care act mean for behavioral health? (n.d.-a). https://www.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/samhsa_infographic2_final_banner_rev_r111314b.pdf
Dc. (2023, August 19). Why using insurance for therapy doesn’t always make sense. My Denver Therapy | Counseling in Denver, Colorado. https://mydenvertherapy.com/why-using-insurance-for-therapy-doesnt-make-sense-for-everyone/
Diego, M. G. S., & Lorna. (2015, September 28). Should I use my health insurance to pay for therapy?. Lorna Hecht. https://lornahecht.com/should-i-use-my-health-insurance-to-pay-for-therapy/
Her Time Therapy, L. M. C. (2024, October 17). Pros and cons of using insurance to pay for therapy. Mental Health Match. https://mentalhealthmatch.com/articles/therapy/pros-and-cons-of-using-insurance-to-pay-for-therapy
Mann, B. (2022, August 3). Why Mental Health Providers should think twice before credentialing with health insurance: Ramifications for therapists, clients and the field of Mental Health. Brianna Mann, PHD. https://www.briannamannphd.com/blog/2018/6/24/why-mental-health-providers-should-think-twice-before-credentialing-with-health-insurance-ramifications-for-therapists-clients-and-the-field-of-mental-health