Insurance & Costs

Open enrollment mental health planning: how to read a plan summary, check therapist networks, and pick coverage that pays for psychiatry too.

The first call to a malpractice attorney is rarely the angry one. It is usually quiet — a daughter cleaning out her mother’s apartment in Cleveland six weeks after the funeral, finding the appointment book that shows three psychiatry visits in the month before her mother died by suicide. The notes from those visits, when … Read more

The Money Conversation Nobody Has Before Starting Therapy Most Americans walk into their first mental health care appointment having researched the therapist’s specialty, their reviews, and their availability. Almost none have done thirty minutes of preparation on the question that will quietly shape every subsequent decision: how am I actually going to pay for this. The cost … Read more

Marcus’s mother stood in the parking lot of a treatment center outside Knoxville, Tennessee, on a Tuesday morning in February, holding a copy of her son’s Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield card and a printout of the rehab’s intake forms. Her son had agreed to go — finally, after eleven years of fentanyl and an … Read more

The denial letter arrived in a thick envelope from Hartford, addressed to a 47-year-old project manager in Minneapolis who had been out of work on long-term disability for nine months with major depressive disorder and generalised anxiety. The envelope contained 31 pages: a benefit denial, a four-page summary of “subjective complaints lacking objective medical evidence,” … Read more

Priya was a software engineer in Austin, Texas, with an Aetna PPO through her employer. After eight months of waitlists and rejected directory listings, she finally booked a therapist through Headway who said she took Aetna. The first session went well. The second session went well. Three weeks later, Priya got an Explanation of Benefits … Read more

The intake counselor in Boca Raton sounded confident on the phone. “Cigna is one of our best payers,” she told the family of a 34-year-old software engineer in Charlotte who needed residential treatment for alcohol use disorder. The family handed over the insurance card, signed the admission packet, and watched their son walk into a … Read more

Out-of-Network Reimbursement Is Real Money Most Patients Leave on the Table Patients who see therapists outside their insurance network often assume they are paying full freight with no recourse. They are usually wrong. Most commercial plans, including networks behind UnitedHealthcare therapists, Aetna therapists, Cigna therapists, and Blue Cross Blue Shield variants, include out-of-network benefits that reimburse … Read more