I’ve alluded to this in my other posts, but I wanted to share my journey to becoming a mostly self-pay therapist. At the end of 2022, I went from taking every insurance to being fully private pay (except for one Marketplace insurance). It something I had seen other therapists do, and to be honest, I used to judge them for it.
I went into my first year of private practice with an odd mix of fear and hubris. I knew that insurance could be tricky, but I figured so many people deal with it, it couldn’t be that bad… right? I felt good about being able to offer that to my clients, and I felt frustrated that so many people did not. “Oh, you don’t want to do a little extra work? Well tough shit”, I thought. “How can you be a therapist and be too lazy to deal with insurance? People should be able to use their benefits - they pay for them after all!” Little did I know that it was not nearly that simple. That attitude would ultimately cost me hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars, and unspecified costs to my mental health. And I’ll tell you exactly how.
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