Investment and FAQ
If you send a “Request a Free 20 Minute Consultation” form, and you don’t get a response from me within 3 business days, please follow up by leaving me a voicemail.
Voicemail: 480 687 7631
My Rates:
I offer 50 minute sessions and 85 minute sessions. Prices are per each session.
50 minute initial assessment: $200
85 minute initial assessment: $300
50 minute follow-up session: $200
85 minute follow-up session: $300
The session length is up to you, however meeting twice per month is the minimum necessary to make progress towards your goals. Clients who invest less time tend to not make progress.
Choosing 50 minute sessions weekly is helpful for:
Building and maintaining momentum towards your goals
Slow pacing the processing work if you are new to experiential therapy
Doing bite-sized bits of work each week – targets will be continued week to week
Doing tele-health (85 minutes can feel long when it’s on a screen)
Choosing 85 minute sessions every other week is helpful for:
Maximizing your time if you are traveling a longer distance to meet in person
Having time to talk AND do experiential processing work in each session
Trying to clear out a whole target in one session
Carving out personal time if you are a busy professional
Choosing 85 minute sessions every week is helpful for:
Fast-tracking your processing work so you can feel relief quickly
What is an experiential therapy session with Taana like?
- You bring a problem you want to focus on, such as a fear, a phobia, an uncomfortable feeling, a negative belief about yourself, or a behavior you don’t like.
- I provide you options to custom-blend a processing experience for you using experiential therapy – such as Advanced EMDR, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, Parts work, or Psychodrama. “We could do this….. , or we could do this…..” This allows you to choose the methods you prefer. If you don’t know what you prefer, we have an experimental attitude and try some things out.
- I act as a container and guide you through processing using your preferred methods. I am right with you to help you move through questions, blocks or any challenges that come up during the session. (That highly trained and attuned guidance is the main reason self-guided EMDR is a terrifying idea!)
How long does therapy with Taana take?
Without knowing what you need to process, or how ready you are to process it, it’s nearly impossible to say.
If you have had therapy before and have at least talked about the problem, that tends to make things go faster. If you are willing to tolerate feeling uncomfortable emotions temporarily, and can attend to sensations in your body, that makes things go faster. If you have good self-care skills, that makes things go faster. If you can feel compassion and empathy for yourself, that makes things go faster. If you attend sessions consistently and often, that makes things go faster.
If you’ve never had therapy before, never talked about your problems, don’t do any self-care, avoid your emotions or awareness of your body, and avoid having appointments, you are probably not ready for this kind of therapy, and I am not the therapist you need at this moment.
I can tell you that my goal is for clients to have relief as quickly as possible. If you are a good fit for what I do, that usually starts to happen within a few sessions. We can talk about whether we would be a good fit if you Request a Free 20 Minute Phone Consultation.
Payment:
To give you my best in every session, and the high quality therapy you deserve, I do not contract with any insurance companies.
You deserve to know that the therapist you choose can remember your circumstances, goals, and concerns and is energized, focused and ready to work, not burned out, overwhelmed, exhausted and worried about how they are going to pay their bills that month.
The work we do together will be based on your goals, needs, and pace, not on an insurance company’s profit-focused practices.
You may enjoy the greater level of confidentiality when working with a private-pay therapist. Private pay ensures your insurance company is not reading and logging all your private therapy notes and deeply personal information into their system.
When you choose a private-pay therapist, that therapist has the ability to provide returns on your investment in the form of cutting-edge and speciality therapies that are demonstrated to be highly effective. Specialty therapy trainings are extremely expensive (Up to $10k for one modality), and insurance rates don’t allow a therapist to afford them.
You can read more about this in my blog post below:
I accept credit or debit cards, including HSA or FSA cards with a Visa Logo. To streamline payments, I have each client keep a valid card on file in my secure electronic medical record system. Your card is run automatically within 24 hours of your appointment. Then you don’t have to worry about following up to pay, or taking time out of your session to pay.
I have a 24 hour cancellation policy – meaning cancellations or rescheduling must happen at least 24 hours BEFORE your scheduled appointment time to avoid the full charge. Your appointments are time reserved on my schedule specifically for you – therefore that time reserved becomes your responsibility. If you become unable to keep the time commitment, the sooner you cancel or reschedule, the better, in order to allow other people access to that time.
If you find yourself in a situation where you need to cancel your appointments often, we may need to put working together on hold until you have the ability to reserve the time. I do not enjoy taking payments from people when they can’t keep their appointment, but it’s a financial reality I have to acknowledge to keep my business open.
You can schedule, cancel and reschedule appointments on your own in my secure client portal, Simple Practice, as long as it’s outside the 24 hour window. Link here*
I recommend that clients consult a tax advisor as to whether they have the ability to deduct unreimbursed healthcare expenses like therapy from their income/net profit. Depending on your circumstances, this may be preferable to pursuing insurance company reimbursement for out of network services, and does not require you to compromise your confidentiality to the insurance company. Read more about this here https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc502
If you seek reimbursement from your insurance company for out-of-network services, please be aware that recently some companies have been requiring copies of the session notes and other confidential info about your treatment in order to consider reimbursement. Session notes have never been required before for out of network reimbursement, and this is likely a new strategy to find petty technicalities to use to delay and deny payment.
I do not follow any individual insurance companies’ particular requirements for documentation. I provide the basic necessary info for reimbursement by providing the client with a receipt of payment or “Superbill.” Please let me know if you intend to submit superbills, so I can make sure they get completed in the system and are available for you. I cannot guarantee that any insurance company will abide by their contract with you to provide reimbursement.
Good Faith Estimate
Clients are entitled to a Good Faith Estimate for private-pay services, in order to avoid “Surprise” medical bills that they were not expecting. Read more about this here https://www.cms.gov/newsroom/fact-sheets/no-surprises-understand-your-rights-against-surprise-medical-bills
If you schedule weekly 50 minute therapy sessions, you can expect to pay $800 out of pocket per month.
If you schedule (2) 85 minute therapy sessions, you can expect to pay $600 out of pocket per month.
If you schedule (2) 50 minute therapy sessions, you can expect to pay $400 out of pocket per month.
Since every human is unique, has different responses to treatment, varying levels of tolerance to engage in the deep work necessary to resolve problems, and because there is no set number of sessions for any specific mental health problem, it is impossible to predict exactly how many sessions a particular client might need ahead of time. For example, no therapist can say that any client with Generalized Anxiety will meet their goals in 6 sessions. Trying to do so has been proven to fail by insurance company and EAP practices. The inability to predict length of treatment is especially true for clients with complex trauma or dual diagnoses (for example, generalized anxiety and OCD or PTSD and major depression).
I continuously check in with clients to ensure the work we are doing is meeting their needs, and to ensure they feel they are progressing towards their goals. It is up to each client to decide how many therapy sessions they want to have, and whether the work we are doing is helping them. Any client may discontinue working with any therapist at any time, no minimum number of sessions are required.
If you are comparison shopping between therapists, it’s important to consider the following factors:
- Years of experience practicing as a therapist
- Level of licensure (Intern level, Associate level under supervision, or Independently licensed)
- Location of the therapist’s practice
- Specialty training (speciality trainings such as EMDR, Internal Family Systems and Sensorimotor Psychotherapy are extremely costly and therefore are reflected in therapist’s rates)
Intern level: Therapists who are still in graduate school, under supervision but not licensed yet.
Phoenix market rate: $60-$120 per session
Associate Level: Recently graduated therapists still under supervision for 3200 hours.
LAC = Licensed Associate Counselor, LMSW = Licensed Master Social Worker
LAMFT = Licensed Associate Marriage and Family Therapist
Phoenix market rate: $150+ per session
It’s important to note that AZ law now allows associate-level therapists to own their own practices. If they are still under supervision, they are required to inform you of this.
Independent Level: Practicing at least 2-3 years, met extensive requirements to practice on their own.
LCSW = Licensed Clinical Social Worker, LPC = Licensed Professional Counselor
LMFT = Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Phoenix market rate: $160+ per session
Independent license + 5-10 years of experience: $160-$250 per session
Independent license + 10-20 years of experience: $170-$300 per session
Independent license + 20 or more years of experience: $200-$350 per session