Practice Updates, August 2024

Practice Updates for River’s Journey Counseling:

I hope everyone is having a wonderful end of the summer.  I can’t believe how quickly it has gone by!  One of the things I love about summer is the slower pace, which gives me a little more breathing room and time to check in with myself for my next right steps. 

Over the summer, I noticed my work/life balance has been slipping.  With my kids off from school, I realized my priority has been focused too heavily on work and with not enough time for fun and play with kids, spending quiet evenings with my husband, and getting outside to walk my dog bestie.  

But in addition to that, I wasn’t leaving myself enough time to explore my other passions, interests and all the other things that fully support my happiness.  Something that gives me the boost to bring my best self to working with clients—self-care and opportunities to explore my interests.

Reflecting on the year, I was unable to set aside adequate time for my self-care and other mind-body-spirit activities that support my overall well-being.  In the past 25+ years, I have noticed this often happens when I am working harder outside of sessions for clients than is needed.  I end up depleting myself. 

With an active autoimmune disorder, it is imperative for my health that I take time for self-care, including consistent rest and opportunities to reduce stress.   Beyond that, it is imperative for all of us to find the exact amount of self-care our minds, bodies, and spirits require and to make consistent time for our personalized strategies so that we continue to be healthy; feeling alive and energized.

Effective October 1, 2024, I will have specific hours to include 20 counseling appointment hours per week.  I put much thought, consideration, and time into trying to develop a schedule that would allow me to see my current clients with limited disruption. 

I understand this may be a challenge for clients who have requested evening only appointments. However, it is no longer sustainable for me to work four nights a week until 8pm.  It has not only impacted my health, but I have been unable to finish paperwork that accompanies sessions, and spend quality time with my family.  

At times, I may have increased availability for Saturday appointments, especially if I need to shuffle an evening.  Unfortunately, I am unable to provide consistent Saturday appointments. 

For those clients who do not feel I am able to provide them with the support they need, please reach out to me and we can discuss options for working together or possible referrals. 

My schedule after October 1, with be as follows:

Monday: 3-8pm ONLINE ONLY

Tuesday: 10am – 5pm ONLINE ONLY

Wednesday: 11am – 5pm IN-PERSON (Batavia) or ONLINE

Thursday: 2pm – 7:30pm IN-PERSON (Batavia) or ONLINE

Each session will be either on the hour or on the half hour to better accommodate clients whose workday consists of meetings that follow that schedule.

Appointments will be 50-55 minutes to allow for time to schedule a follow-up session before my next client session.  If you are unable to schedule a follow-up session at the time of your session, you are welcome to email, text, or call to schedule a follow-up session later.  I will not offer the option to book yourself online until we all get used to this new schedule and times available. 

My hours available tend to ebb and flow based on client need and season, but I am adopting this schedule beginning Oct 1 and will notify everyone if anything changes. 

The second change, is I will be working with a company called Headway, for my billing and admin tasks.  Also reflecting on this year, the most timing consuming and frustrating aspects of my job is working with insurance companies. As I am sure many of you have already heard me say!!  Contacting insurance, billing, and following up on claims are time consuming as they are done outside of sessions, between their hours of business, and is completely uncompensated (as with any provider who bills insurance). However, this is an essential part of accepting insurance and allowing a third party payor for clients services.

I will be slowly rolling out the process of working with Headway.  I will notify you as I add you to their system.  United Healthcare will be the last provider I move over. 

FOR ANY CLIENT WHO I MOVE OVER TO HEADWAY FOR BILLING/ADMIN SUPPORT:  You will no longer access TheraNest for viewing my calendar, receiving session reminders, accessing the ledger, or receiving telehealth link for online sessions. 

So, what is Headway:

I will begin to use Headway to manage my billing and admin work so I can place all of my focus on our work together. Headway manages everything related to payments and insurance to make things as easy as possible for both of us! They will be taking the most frustrating part of accepting insurance as a solo practitioner.

What to expect:

The Headway team will reach out via email to help you set up your account and add your insurance and payment details. Because they will be responsible for verifying insurance benefits, you’ll see your cost per session (co-payment, co-insurance cost, or deductible remaining) ahead of time. You can check your benefits any time there.

How to contact the Headway team:

You can reach the Headway team directly through their contact form. They can help with any insurance, billing, or account questions.

For current clients, I will move over your basic information to their system and then Headway will  send an email invite to help you enter payment info and acknowledge their standard forms (consents).   If time allows, I will try to upload your insurance information I have on file, otherwise they will ask for insurance to be uploaded at some point to before I begin billing through them.    

·         Ahead of each session, you will receive appointment reminders with date, time, and estimated cost for the next session (co-pay/co-insurance will probably always remain the same, unless a deductible hasn’t been met).  Again, no longer through TheraNest.

·         Sessions will be charged to the payment method on file afterward and you will receive an invoice via email.

·         Ahead of each session, clients will receive appointment reminders with date, time, and estimated cost.

Not all clients will be moved over the Headway, including but not limited to, any clients paying out of pocket because they are without insurance coverage or those who prefer to not use insurance.  I will notify you if anything changes. 

Moving over the Headway for billing and admin, will create other changes as well, since I will not use TheraNest for client’s added to Headway:

·Their system can create links for video sessions with a program called doxy.me which I used prior to enrolling with TheraNest.  We can use doxy.me for our telehealth sessions, it is free for you to use, and you do not download an app to access our session. You simply click on the link they send you. It is HIPAA compliant, and you just need to be on one of the big browsers on any device.  We can also move over to Zoom sessions if necessary.  And as usual, if there are disruptions in the internet we can move to phone sessions, as well. 

As always, let me know if there are any questions,

Mary