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"Helping families, children and adolescents
grow well."
Office Policies
Length:
Individual or Family Sessions are 55 minutes long.
Parent Consultations are 90 minutes long.
Payment:
My fee for individual or family therapy is $120 per hour. Ninety minute parent consultations are $175.
Payment is due at the time of the appointment, unless other arrangements have been made. I accept
checks and Visa, Mastercard, and American Express credit or debit cards. I suggest to my clients
that they write out the check before our sessions, so that our work is not cut short to give you time
to write your check at the end of the session. Every client receives a receipt for their payment by e-mail,
and this can be submitted for insurance reimbursement if you wish.
I recognize that therapy is costly in terms of both your time and your money. I respect my clients commitment to improving their families and their lives, and I acknowledge my obligation to provide quality service that will benefit you now and in the years to come.
New Clients:
New clients should fill out the Family Questionnaire and
send it to me at least 24 hours before our scheduled meeting. This questionnaire will
probably take you about an hour or two to fill out. Your answers to these questions will
give me a lot of helpful information about your family. In addition, by filling out the
questionnaire before time, we can get right to work and not use valuable time gathering basic
information during our first session.
The easiest way to send me your completed questionnaire is to send it to me as an e-mail attachment.
You can download it from here:
Cancellation:
Therapy needs to take place consistently for you to experience
the greatest benefits.
I ask for 24 hours notice before cancelling an appointment, which you can do by calling or e-mailing me a message.
If you must cancel a session with less than 24 hours notice, you can reschedule the session for
later that week at no charge—and I will do my best to accommodate you in rescheduling. If you do
not reschedule your session for the same week, than you will be asked to pay for the missed session.
I hold myself to the same standard that I ask for from my clients, and if I miss a session without
cancelling it 24 hours in advance, your next session will be free of charge.
In case of dangerous weather situations, I follow federal government cancellation announcements.
If the federal government is closed, than my office is also closed. In addition, if the area
near my office is impassable, I will call you to let you know not to come. Otherwise, I will
expect you to either: keep the appointment, reschedule for later in the week or pay for the missed session.
Confidentiality:
All information disclosed within your
therapy session, including case notes and records, will be treated as confidential.
No information will be revealed to anyone not present in therapy without the permission of the
client or a legally authorized representative unless an applicable legal or ethical exception exists.
When seeing couples and families, it is an important part of my work to promote honesty and openness.
Therefore, I do not keep secrets between family members. If someone tells me something that is not known
by family members, I will work with that individual to assist them in sharing their secret.
Duty to Warn/Report:
I am required by law to report to the appropriate law enforcement agency any suspected abuse and any
situation where the client threatens violence to an identifiable victim. If feasible, this
means that I am also legally required to inform the specified victim or victims of the nature of the threat,
the identity of the person making the threat, and the identity of the specified victim or victims.
All actual or suspected acts of such abuse will need to be reported to the appropriate agency.
I am also legally permitted to break confidentiality if you present a danger to yourself or others.
Contact After Hours:
Between therapy appointments, you can contact me by either voice-mail or e-mail. I check my messages daily,
but schedule returning phone calls or e-mails on Monday and Friday mornings--unless there is an emergency.
For late cancellations or other urgent messages, press #911 at the end of your voice-mail message and your
message will be forwarded to my cell phone. If you or your family member is in crisis, you should
go directly to your nearest emergency room and call me from there.
Ending Therapy:
It is my goal to support each of my clients when they are ready to end therapy, for any reason. It has been my experience that every client would like to end our work together in a positive way, and I will help you through this process. We will then focus on the progress you have made, the challenges you might continue to face, and what you have gained through
therapy that will help you meet those challenges successfully.
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