Frequently Asked Questions About Therapy Sessions

Short answer, no, there is nothing wrong with you, and there is no shame in making a therapy session. Seeking help when you are struggling is brave and courageous, especially because it can sometimes be taboo. [We don’t think it should be, by the way!]

You would see a doctor if you were having stomach pains or had a broken bone. You wouldn’t be expected to know how to solve those on your own. You’d seek a professional. When we find ourselves stuck and struggling in our lives, it is entirely appropriate to reach out to a professional online therapist to seek help for that area of your life too.

Our primary focus as an online therapist in California is working with adults that are struggling with life transitions and stressors. Our most common clients are seeking grief counseling. As well as supporting caregivers who are facing caregiver burnout. We also work with those living with a chronic illness in the Bay Area or who have a terminal diagnosis such as cancer.

Additionally, we provide anxiety treatment and depression treatment. These are for those who can no longer live life the way they want to live because the symptoms are holding them back. As an anxiety therapist, I also see people with high achiever anxiety. They typically look like they “have it all together” to the outside world but are suffering inside. In addition to all of these, we also work with those trying to reduce stress, implement boundaries and avoid burnout in their careers.

Studies have shown that the therapeutic relationship is one of the most significant factors in successful psychotherapy treatment. Finding the right therapist is a big part of that. We always encourage people to check with a couple of different therapists, but sometimes we just “know.”

You may want to consider if you feel more comfortable with a male or female therapist, what age range you might feel most comfortable with, and what type of experience they have as well. Looking at their website and then a free consultation is usually the best indicator of finding a good fit. If you’re looking at a therapy website and you find yourself nodding your head in agreement that’s a good sign. It means you have found someone that gets where you are at and might be an excellent fit for you!

In our therapy session in California together, I will hold a safe space for you to be open without judgment, fear, or bias. It’s essential that we have a strong relationship with a lot of trust and respect for each other to dive into some of the issues that have presented themselves. Sometimes our sessions will be deep and complex, but they will also be meaningful. With that being said, sometimes we will laugh and have fun too!

Some days, you may not feel up to having a heavy therapy session, which is perfectly fine and normal. Sometimes, we may not talk about whatever has brought you to our therapy session in the San Francisco Bay Area, but other things that are going on in your life. Each therapy appointment will be different from the ones prior, but they will always focus on you and your needs. Our relationship will be collaborative, supportive, warm, and engaging. I will also frequently ask for feedback to make sure our sessions meet your goals.

An initial consultation is a quick meet and greet. We’ll meet on our secure HIPAA platform that we use in online therapy sessions. We’ll talk in general terms about what is going on in your life, how you’ve been feeling, and what you are hoping to change. We both have time to ask and answer questions for each other.

The initial appointment can feel overwhelming and uncomfortable, and you may even feel like you want to cancel the session before it starts. However, those are common feelings. Know that your online therapist is there for you and will help ease the nervousness around your initial consult and your first therapy appointment.

We will briefly review the paperwork at the beginning of our first appointment to ensure we both have the same understanding.

Before our first official therapy session, you would have already met with your therapist for an initial consultation. Once you decide to use Bay Area Therapy for Wellness in California to be your therapy provider, we’ll send you some paperwork over e-mail that needs to be completed before we have our first session.

We’ll start our first session off by answering any questions and quickly reviewing the paperwork you already signed electronically.

From there, the first session is really about information gathering and getting to know one another. Your therapist will begin to gather information about your past and present to understand better what is going on and ask what you hope to get out of therapy in very general terms. It’s okay if you don’t have an answer to that; that is something you can work on with your counselor. You’ve taken a huge first step by setting up your first appointment; coming to sessions will get easier from here.

The therapeutic relationship between a therapist and client is highly regarded, and it is the therapist’s job to uphold confidentiality. With that said, there are times when the therapist might have to break confidentiality, and this is also called the limits of confidentiality.

Those times are when abuse is reported or has happened to someone under the age of 18, or when there is abuse happening to someone over the age of 65, or to someone that requires others to care for them, such as a disabled adult. Other times when confidentiality can be broken are when someone reports that they intend to kill themselves or someone else. Your therapist will tell you if the information you’ve shared requires a mandated report by your therapist, and you will work through that together.

There are specific categories of abuse that are reportable, and they are:

For Adults and Disabled Persons:

From the CDSS in California:

 Physical: Hitting, kicking, burning, dragging, over or under medicating

 Sexual Abuse: Unwanted sexual contact, sexual exploitation, forced viewing of pornography

 Abandonment: Desertion or willful forsaking by anyone having responsibility for care

 Isolation: Preventing the individual from receiving mail, telephone calls, visitors

 Financial: Theft, misuse of funds or property, extortion, duress, fraud

 Neglect: Failure to provide food, clothing, shelter, or health care for an individual under one’s care when the means to do so are available.

 Self-neglect: e.g., Failure to provide food, clothing, shelter, or health care for oneself.

 Mental suffering: Verbal assaults, threats, causing fear.

For Children:

From the CDC, Child Abuse and/or Child Neglect Can Be Any of the following:

• A physical injury inflicted on a child by another person other than by accidental means.

• The sexual abuse, assault, or exploitation of a child.

• The negligent treatment or maltreatment of a child by a person responsible for the child’s welfare under the circumstances indicating harm or threatened harm to the child’s health or welfare. This is whether the harm or threatened harm is from acts or omissions on the part of the responsible person.

• The willful harming or endangerment of the person or health of a child, any cruel or inhumane corporal punishment or any injury resulting in a traumatic condition.”

It is very normal to feel nervous about sharing something hard. You might feel overwhelmed, or it may cause too much emotional pain to say some things aloud.

Your therapist will respect your boundaries and will never push you to talk about something painful for you or something you aren’t ready to share. There may be some guiding you towards discovering what does feel comfortable to talk about. When the time comes, we will work at your pace and work through the tough stuff together if and when you are ready. Whatever you’re going through, whatever is going on in your life or has happened in the past, bring that stuff to the session, and we can explore the hard stuff together.

Everyone has a different duration in therapy, and it is impossible to know how long someone might be in therapy. Some people prefer to discontinue services once they get the symptoms under control and when they have met their goal (called a treatment goal). Other people find that therapy is beneficial in many parts of their lives, so they continue to come to therapy for a long time. It is ultimately up to you how long you stay in therapy.

On average, it takes about a year to have enough time to dive deep into the root cause instead of simply using a quick fix. Most people start to find some relief within the first few weeks. We will work together to find the right amount of time that will work for you by tracking your progress and ensuring your therapy session meets your needs.

Yes! All of our therapy sessions are conducted through online therapy in California. We use a secure HIPAA platform called Zoom to conduct all our sessions. Zoom is like facetime and is often used across many places of business to hold virtual face-to-face meetings. It’s easy to access and use if you have a laptop, desktop computer, smartphone, or tablet. Online therapy is easy to use and reduces unnecessary time spent traveling.

We take confidentiality and privacy very seriously as part of our therapeutic relationship. All our electronic devices and record-keeping processes are password protected (usually double password protected!). We do everything we can to keep your data and privacy safe.

We use a HIPAA-compliant platform to hold all our therapy sessions when we are doing online therapy. We ensure that the space we are doing sessions is private and that others can’t hear us speak. We request that all our clients have sessions in a quiet and private space to ensure privacy as much as possible.

You most likely already have one of the many available options needed to conduct online therapy. Do you have a laptop with a webcam? Desktop computer with a webcam? A smartphone or tablet? Any of these options will support our secure video platform for a therapy session. If you have ever done facetime, a zoom meeting, or skype with a loved one, you will be a pro with online therapy sessions.

We have a full page that talks about online therapy! The research says yes, virtual therapy sessions are just as impactful as in-person therapy and may support your goals better than in-person therapy because of how convenient it is.

Our therapy sessions are approximately 50 minutes long, with 10 minutes saved at the end for your therapist to complete notes, billing, and prepare any resources for you. This is sometimes called “the 50-minute hour.”

If we need longer appointments or meeting with family members for a group session, we may meet for up to 80 minutes, and the additional time will be planned ahead of time. Therapy will only take a fraction of your time to help you meet your goals.

Bay Area Therapy for Wellness is not contracted with any insurance company. We are what is called “out of network,” “self-pay,” or “private pay,” and there are many benefits to you if you choose to go that route. If not, that’s fine too, and we can work with you to use your insurance benefits. However, it is completely possible to have quality therapy without insurance.

Some of the top benefits of private pay therapy or therapy without insurance:

• Your records won’t be looked at by a third party like your insurance company.

• therapy without insurance is the most secure way to keep your information confidential.

• You don’t have to receive a diagnosis.

• Therapy sessions can be whatever you want it to be, for however long you want it to be, without waiting on authorizations or insurance companies saying they won’t pay for you to receive the services that will work best for you.

If you have insurance benefits and would like to use them, we can create something called a Super Bill and submit a claim to your insurance on your behalf for your insurance company to reimburse you for the cost of the therapy session. This only works if you have out-of-network coverage (OON) for therapy services through your insurance. The rate that your insurance company reimburses you is pre-determined in your contract with your insurance, and it may not be the full fee. The best way to find this information is to call your insurance company directly and ask if you 1) have OON benefits for therapy, 2) how many sessions are covered with an out of network provider, and 3) what the reimbursement rate is if you were to file a superbill.

To help with reimbursements, Bay Area Therapy for Wellness in California offers courtesy billing, which means less time out of your life and less hassle for you! We aren’t like other therapy practices that leave you hanging. We use a contracted company that will file and “chase” the insurance claim for you to ensure that you receive reimbursement for your sessions if your insurance provider covers it. We offer this complimentary service to all our clients because we believe therapy is an important investment in your life.

We accept all major credit cards through our secure online portal. We require that a credit card be stored on this portal to secure an initial appointment. Services will be billed on the morning of the scheduled appointment.

We reserve the time slot for you each week, and while life happens for everyone, we expect you to come to the therapy session as you would expect us to. Having consistent appointments is a key factor in attaining your therapy goals and reducing your symptoms. So, we have a cancellation policy that supports that. Our cancellation policy is a 24-hour cancellation notice. Cancellations within 24 hours or a no-show will be charged the full session fee of $210 for holding the time for you. The best thing to do when you suspect a schedule change or are unable to attend is to reach out to your therapist as soon as possible.

The best way to find our availability is to speak with Stephanie directly or use our client portal to search for available appointments. The typical hours we hold sessions are Tuesday from 9:30 am-5 pm, Wednesday from 1 pm-5 pm, and Thursday 9:30 am-5 pm. Our last session ends at 5 pm. We are unable to offer evening or weekend appointments.

[WINNIE, I WILL ADD THIS LINK – SC]

We have several easy ways for you to get in touch with Bay Area Therapy for Wellness in the San Francisco Bay Area.

• Use the form on the contact us page to submit a message

• Email us at Stephanie@bayareatherapyforwellness.com

• Call or Text: 925-789-7080

Let's start with your complimentary consultation to make sure we're a good fit for each other. We will have about 20 minutes together to ask each other questions and see if we “fit.” I always recommend checking with several therapists before making a choice, as the therapeutic relationship is extremely important.

Honestly, having a solid relationship with your therapist is just as (if not more) critical to your success than any type of therapy type that they use! You’ll want to make sure you feel comfortable with your therapist, feel like they understand where you are coming from and your experiences as well.

If you feel like our website has “hit home” with you and you’re feeling like we are aligning on many things, it’s a sign that we might be a good match! Reach out to us to schedule your consultation; you can use the form on the contact page, use the client portal, call, text, or email to schedule an initial consultation.

Our therapist, Stephanie Crouch, has her master’s degree in Social Work and is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). She is not a psychiatrist, nor is she a medical doctor. Therefore she will not be able to prescribe you any medication. Stephanie is happy to collaborate with a medical doctor or psychiatrist with a release of information at your request to help you meet your goals in therapy. Only licensed psychiatrists and medical doctors should be prescribing medications. On our depression page, we talk more about medications and how they can be used in therapy sessions.

The Board of Behavioral Sciences receives and responds to complaints regarding services provided within the scope of practice of (marriage and family therapists, licensed educational psychologists, clinical social workers, or professional clinical counselors). You may contact the board online or by calling (916) 574-7830.

Please be advised that the therapists, therapist interns and staff of Stephanie Crouch LCSW Inc. DBA Bay Area Therapy for Wellness do not participate in person, virtually, by phone or in writing in any court-related matters that the clients of Stephanie Crouch LCSW Inc. DBA Bay Area Therapy for Wellness may be a party to or become a party to in any way.

The therapists and interns of Stephanie Crouch LCSW Inc. DBA Bay Area Therapy for Wellness do not write letters regarding their client’s treatment to any entity, including court. The therapists and interns of Stephanie Crouch LCSW Inc. DBA Bay Area Therapy for Wellness at no time will offer an opinion or recommendation in any court matter, especially as it relates to custody.

If a court order is served and is requesting that a therapist or therapist intern of Stephanie Crouch LCSW Inc. DBA Bay Area Therapy for Wellness be present in person or virtually and or there is a request for records, the client's consent will be requested before turning over confidential information. When obtaining this consent, the client will be told exactly what has been requested by the court and there is no guarantee that the information will be kept confidential. This includes a client’s mental health history; current status and inclusive records and may not be in the best interest of the client. The therapist-client relationship does not render the therapist as an advocate. The therapist will withhold any opportunity to engage in a dual relationship with the client.

If called to testify in a deposition or court hearing, the client may not discern between information and records provided. All information and records are available for discovery. This may not be in the best interests of the client. The therapist reserves the right to discuss the implications of releasing information and records.

Court Policy & Fee’s

Please be advised that should a therapist or intern from Stephanie Crouch LCSW Inc. DBA Bay Area Therapy for Wellness be court-ordered to appear in court or at a deposition, the fee stipulation is as follows:

· $250 per hour for preparation (including submission of records)

· $100 per document to file documents with the court

· $250 per phone call billable in 15-minute increments

· $250 per hour for depositions

· $2,000 per day for court appearances plus $250 per hour for travel to and from the court

Please be advised that should a therapist or intern from Stephanie Crouch LCSW Inc. DBA Bay Area Therapy for Wellness be ordered by the court to write a letter to the court, the time shall be billed at $250 per hour, starting with a 1-hour base and billed at ½ hour increments after the first hour.

All therapists and interns of Stephanie Crouch LCSW Inc. DBA Bay Area Therapy for Wellness will NOT be ON-CALL at any time.

Should a case be trailed, or continued, the therapist will be paid in full for each day ($2,000/daily) as well as an additional $1,000 per day as it hinders the therapist’s or intern’s ability to be available to their other clients.

Subpoenas

If a therapist or intern with Stephanie Crouch LCSW Inc. DBA Bay Area Therapy for Wellness is to receive a subpoena, please email or call the office and set up a time for the subpoena to be served during normal business hours.

• Please coordinate with our office scheduler to ensure that the therapist can be available for the date and time of the deposition or court hearing.

• Reminder: A subpoena in which the client provided the therapist as a potential witness shall be billed in full for all court related activity, including but not limited to all attorney fees and costs that are incurred by a therapist or intern as a result of legal action.

All court fees will be invoiced and must be paid in full 7 days prior to the court date. Should the court, calendar the hearing for another date, the therapist or intern must be re-issued a new subpoena with the new court hearing date.

• The therapist may agree to accept subsequent subpoenas via email if agreed upon.

Should the therapists or interns be on vacation, the party initiating the court order must take reasonable steps to avoid imposing undue burden or expense on a person subject to the subpoena. All fees will be doubled if the person subject to the subpoena is previously scheduled to be out of the office and is forced to make changes to their schedule.

Review your right to a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) on our GFE page