Our Insurance Policies for Mental Health Services

Navigating insurance reimbursement can be a difficult and confusing task for individuals seeking mental health services.  At Crossroads Psychological Associates, our friendly and professional front office staff is ready to help make sense of it all and answer your questions about insurance for mental health services.  When considering insurance reimbursement, it is important for current and prospective patients to know that there are policies here at Crossroads that set us apart from most other practices.

We file to insurance for you

We do offer medication management and psychiatry services that are covered by Medicare.  The majority of the rest of our services will be covered by your insurance at the out of network rate.  Most insurance providers in Maryland do, in fact, have out of network benefits, and in most instances our front office staff will file the insurance claims for you. This means that you won’t have to deal with submitting superbills to your insurance carrier, but rather, in most cases, we can do so on your behalf.  In the rare case that your insurance will not accept claims directly from us, our staff will provide you with the proper documentation and help answer your questions about how to contact your insurance company to help make sure that you will be  reimbursed.  Please don’t let the fact that we are out of network keep you from contacting us, many (if not most) people have better out of network benefits than they realize.

What if I don’t have out of network benefits or have a very high out of network deductible?

Many of our providers will work on a sliding scale if you don’t have out of network benefits or have a high deductible. As independent clinicians each provider has their own policies, but typically sliding scale fees are based on household income and extenuating circumstances. Please talk with your provider directly to request a sliding scale. We also will work with health spending accounts, reimbursement from employers, community grants and other payment sources when applicable.

What are the benefits of seeing an out of network provider?

At Crossroads we have decided to be out of network for several reasons. The primary reason is that we don’t like the idea of an insurance provider determining the length of treatment, modality or medication to be used. Mental health treatment is a collaborative experience between the client and the clinician, it involves a tremendous amount of trust. We believe the process should be entirely up to the discretion of the client and clinician.

Additionally, by not contracting with insurance we are able to significantly reduce our paperwork load. We do not need to hire additional front office staff to handle the process of continually following up with insurance companies and our providers have significantly less work to do justifying the treatment to insurance. This means that we are able to reimburse our providers at a higher rate, and they have a better work/life balance. Ultimately, that leads to our clinicians being able to spend more attention on the specific clinical needs of their patients, and gives them more time to consult with other professionals involved with the patient such as primary care providers and school counselors.

Still have more questions about our insurance policies for mental health services?

If you have more questions about our insurance policies, or if you are ready to schedule an appointment please contact us today.