1. Studies show that clients who pay privately for health services tend to be more active and invested in their wellbeing, which makes for exciting and fulfilling work for both therapist and client.

2. Paying out-of-pocket gives clients maximum protection and control over their treatment and privacy because it denies managed care providers access to their personal records and confidential information on file. If you are using your insurance to pay for your therapy, or any other medical reason for that matter, your insurance company has complete access to your therapy and medical records and those records and your entire health history are routinely posted on a national insurance database, the Medical Information Bureau. This bureau has over 750 insurance companies as members. They share with other health, life and mortgage insurers, if you sign a general or specific release.

There is a very real potential for this to make you ineligible for health insurance with other companies should you ever need to change carriers. Health insurance providers are now routinely denying new healthy private pay individuals for reasons they find in this database, and those reasons are often simple things such as headaches or mild depression. When you pay for your therapy, it ensures that an insurance company cannot access any diagnoses or treatment records that could be used against you for any reason.

3. Please remember that managed care providers dictate how your mental health care program should proceed. It may be better if you are the only party deciding how many sessions you wish, how often you wish to schedule them, and how long you are willing to participate in therapy. We are all aware of the reported (and, we may assume, unreported) abuses by managed care providers in this regard. I strongly believe that the retention of privacy and control is critically important and empowers you to take care of yourself, your way.