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Comment Catcher: Why You Can't Find A Therapist, No, Really siderea September 1 2016, 06:49:13 UTC
Comment catcher comment for catching comments.

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RE: Comment Catcher: Why You Can't Find A Therapist, No, Really fabrisse September 1 2016, 11:19:03 UTC
I'm pretty sure 26 is ~2/3 of 40 not 1/3.

The big problem I have with KP insurance is the 5 - 8 p.m. slots are scheduled for groups. And you know how I hate mornings? I still managed weekly therapy at 7:00 a.m. because it only made me take 1/2 hour off work. All the other appointments would have cost between 1 & 3 hours of sick leave. My boss let me work 1/2 late on therapy days, so no sick leave charged.

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RE: Comment Catcher: Why You Can't Find A Therapist, No, Really fabrisse September 1 2016, 11:29:26 UTC
Addendum: The other two issues which need to be addressed from the patient side are:
1) Bosses don't take therapy appointments as seriously as dental appointments (much less an oncology appointment) unless one has had a demonstrable mental break.
2) Health insurance will only cover 10 non-group appointments per year with an extension of up to 20.

By the way, the department of Health and Human Services is currently taking comments on how insurance covers mental health. I went into great detail on point 2.

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Re: Comment Catcher: Why You Can't Find A Therapist, No, Really nuclearpolymer September 1 2016, 11:28:46 UTC
This is a wickedly difficult logistics and schedule match up problem ( ... )

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brooksmoses September 1 2016, 17:35:18 UTC
There's also, of course, the fact that $60 to $80 per session is not $60 to $80 of net pay to the therapist. I don't know your actual numbers, but if it's like anything else I've seen, overhead costs of 50% are a plausible ballpark, yeah? There's rent for the office space, and there's paying for various continuing-education class requirements, and bill-management software, and I'm sure there's ongoing certification stuff that's not free, and so on and so forth. Oh, and all the self-employment tax stuff that's not a part of normal corporate salaries, and health insurance.

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siderea September 1 2016, 18:07:59 UTC
That would be a fair summary of Part 2, yes. :)

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cyan_blue September 2 2016, 23:46:14 UTC
There's also the element of, we don't actually keep that $60-80/hour - we spend half of it on business expenses and self-employment taxes.

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Can these numbers be right? anonymous September 6 2016, 23:20:30 UTC
In Ottawa, I believe the going rate for a psychologist is about $200 per hour. The city is full of civil servants who get $2000 in psychological services a year and who have a flexible work schedule and so can attend daytime appointments. The patient pays the psychologist and is reimbursed from insurance so if they miss an appointment they have to pay themselves out of pocket ( I assume though I am not sure of the policy if they submitted a claim).

I guess my question is whether Ottawa is a psychologist's utopia or am I missing something from your article where it appears Californian psychologists are just scraping by. Is it a licensing issue? Canadian psychologists have to have doctorates in clinical psychology.

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Re: Can these numbers be right? siderea September 7 2016, 01:54:47 UTC
Anon,

Not all psychotherapists are psychologists.

One does not need to be a psychologist to be a psychotherapist in Ottawa.

Indeed, I expect an Ottawa psychotherapist who is not a psychologist to be along momentarily to have words with you.

Canadian psychologists do not all have doctorates, because Alberta is special.

An Albertan with a master's degree who is working toward her credentialing as a psychologist may also be along shortly.

I'm also pretty sure that even psychotherapists who are psychologists in Ottawa and have doctorates are not being paid $200 per session by insurance companies or other third-party payers.

Two thousand divided by two hundred is ten.

There's probably a third option besides Ottawa being the "psychologist's" utopia you think it is or that you have missed something from the article.

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Re: Can these numbers be right? qualmish September 15 2016, 03:36:21 UTC
OHIP appears to pay $80.30 per half-hour of psychotherapy. It looks like you could book patients every 46 minutes and still be able to bill $160.60 for each 46-minute block, such that a sufficiently motivated person could effectively bill $209 per hour. A psychiatric "consultation" does appear to be about $200, though outpatient "psychiatric care" is back to the $80.30-per-half-hour rate. It does not seem to mention who would be performing the services. ( http://www.health.gov.on.ca/en/pro/programs/ohip/sob/physserv/sob_master20151221.pdf ) (I am still extremely amused that OHIP pays for narcoanalysis.)

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kelkyag December 19 2016, 06:27:01 UTC
Your essay is referenced in Sane Thinking About Mental Problems.

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