How can therapy help?

I am based in Colorado Springs. I offer both in-person and remote therapy sessions.

I hold the Authority to Practice Interjurisdictional Telepsychology (APIT), granted by the PSYPACT Commission (Exp. date: 08/23/2025, #:15640). PSYPACT is an interstate compact offering qualified psychologists the opportunity to practice telepsychology in multiple states, such as North Carolina, Virginia, Kentucky, and many more. Please click here to see if your state is part of the jurisdiction: https://psypact.org/mpage/psypactmap

This was not an easy decision, but I no longer work with insurance. Doing so previously meant seeing a lot of clients per day and per week, with minimal breaks or admin time, and frequently working without pay, among other reasons. This quickly became unsustainable especially when raising a family. I was burned out both at work and at home.

Going cash/private pay freed up much of my time, flexibility, emotional energy, warmth, and availability, and reignited my passion for this work. It also allows for more clinical creativity.

This model requires payment upfront (cash, check, card) at the time of service. Insurance can be a wonderful and certainly necessary asset, so if you are seeking insurance reimbursement, I will do what I can to help by providing a superbill. This process also reintroduces some of those insurance limitations, but we can discuss that in more detail as it relates to your specific situation.

Several clients have negotiated a “gap exception” with their insurance company, where the Out-Of-Network provider is covered at in-network rates, because I provide specialty care.

I will provide a clinical superbill upon request. This document provides all the information needed for an insurance company to reimburse part or all of the session, depending on your plan. I cannot guarantee reimbursement nor assist with the process beyond providing the superbill. OON healthcare services may be tax deductible.

Some clients have successfully petitioned their insurance company to grant a “gap exception,” whereby costs are partially or fully covered because I provide specialty care.

Here are helpful questions to ask your insurance company:

1. I am seeking outpatient mental health benefits in a professional office setting (or via telehealth).  Does my plan cover out of network providers for this service? If so, what is the coverage?  What is my coinsurance? (this is the percentage of the fee you will have to pay for the services).

2. What is my Out-of-Network deductible?  (The deductible is the amount you must pay first before the plan begins paying at all).  You may have a separate deductible for in-network providers and one for out-of-network providers. 

3. How much of the out-of-network deductible has been met so far this year?

4. My therapist charges $225.  Is this within the Allowed Amount or UCR (Usual, Customary, and Reasonable Fee) for an Out-of-Network Provider?  If not, what is the Allowed Amount?  (Some plans may cap the amount they allow, and reimburse based on this, but may not disclose the Allowed Amount).

5. Are there any limits to the number of sessions per year?

6. What is the Out-of-Pocket Maximum? (The amount you must pay each year before the plan starts paying 100% for health expenses).

7. When do benefits renew? Is my coverage active?

8. How do I submit invoices to the plan for reimbursement? Do I need to get a form to attach them to?  What is the address where I would send MENTAL HEALTH claims?

9. Do you offer a gap exception for specialty clinical care?

Credit to Barbara Griswold, LMFT, Author, Navigating the Insurance Maze:  A Therapist's Complete Guide to Working with Insurance —And Whether You Should (8th edition).  www.theinsurancemaze.com

My fees are $225 for a standard 50-minute session. The initial intake is $250. I can provide a full fee schedule with more detail (e.g., legal fees) as needed. Fees for psychological testing (e.g., personality testing, treatment planning, court-ordered evaluations) are $300/hr.

These fees help cover the costs of running a small independent business, taxes, clinical licensing requirements, continuing education trainings, malpractice insurance, and raising my family.

Treatment goals, treatment frequency, treatment type, situational factors, and feasibility all influence the course of treatment.

As a trauma specialist, I work best with deeper, exploratory, longer-term work that may include intensive exposure therapy. Our work will include solutions and skills, and while those are helpful, they are not necessarily healing. For example - everyone can receive the same communication skill, but not everyone can effectively apply it - why not? That requires deeper processing and introspective work. Often there is fear, betrayal, somatic distress, mistrust, or some other interference. Commitment to homework and/or exercises between sessions, as well as your honest introspection and feedback about your experiences with them, help tremendously with this work.

Clients typically work with me 6 months to a couple years on a weekly or biweekly schedule.

Great question! To be honest, before I became a therapist, I didn't know either.

We start by building rapport and trust through talk therapy. We will assess coping skills, dive into family and relational dynamics, and identify behavioral patterns and their influences, shifting more toward skills-based treatments. We will examine the role that your nervous system has played in response to traumatic events and their aftermath, as well as how thoughts, emotions, and sensations contribute to challenges in day-to-day life. We may progress toward exposure therapy to identify internal conflicts, build tolerance to uncomfortable sensations and emotions, and reprocess traumatic memories with more adaptive thoughts and actions.

You've probably served with or seen lots of people who "could use therapy." You likely have a particular person or image in mind of someone who seeks therapy, and it isn't you.

But real talk - at least one interaction you've had with someone has probably led them to think "that dude needs therapy." There are many reasons it can benefit someone, or someone else in their life.

If you are worried about taking up a seat on a couch that someone else may need more, that is common. Leaders eat last, right? Depends on the mission. Good leaders know when to eat in order to keep leading. Good leaders encourage their team to ask for help, and good leaders model what asking for help looks like. Sometimes it is your turn on the couch. If you are unsure, I can help you decide what to do.