Frequently Asked Questions

Getting Started

    • Your therapist will conduct an intake appointment, which includes gathering relevant information about your mental health history and current reasons for seeking therapy at this time. Your therapist will then review any diagnostic criteria or diagnoses you meet for and discuss with you the different treatment options available.

    • Based on your intake and presenting concerns, your therapist will have a discussion with you about their treatment recommendations. We encourage you to ask as many questions as you can to be an informed consumer. We want you to know why we are selecting a type of treatment for you and how it will help you. 

    • If you can, we encourage you to interview two therapists to find the right fit for you. Think about what you’re looking for in your therapy. Are you looking for someone to simply listen, validate and be a sounding board? Are you looking for a combination of supportive therapy and action oriented or solution focused therapy? Do you have specific goals you’d like to accomplish in therapy? 

    • Our therapy tends to be a combination of both supportive, validating therapy to help you process your feelings and experiences combined with an action-oriented therapy where you learn practical techniques to help you reach your therapy goals. 

    Read our blog post to learn more.

    • The first session is called an intake appointment and usually lasts 90 minutes. The therapist will ask you questions for the entire appointment. The intake is done virtually or in-person in our local office in Newbury, MA.

    • For teenagers, we will meet with you and at least one caregiver for the first 15 minutes to review reasons you’re seeking therapy. The next 60 minutes are with just you and the therapist. Your caregiver rejoins for the last 15 minutes, during which we review diagnostic information and treatment recommendations. We also typically schedule a 45-minute caregiver-only intake appointment after the initial teen appointment to gather the caregiver’s perspective.  

    • During the intake, we will ask you questions about your reasons for seeking therapy and the history of these concerns.

    • Click here for more information. We will ask you about any symptoms of anxiety, your mood and any possible safety concerns, your family and friend relationships, your family’s history of mental health conditions, and if you’ve seen a therapist or received medication for your mental health in the past. We will ask you about your education experience, any substance use, and if you’ve experienced any major loss, trauma, or abuse. Based on your answers, we may follow up with more specific questions about these topics. We will ask you about what you’re looking for in therapy and your goals or wishes for therapy. Lastly, your therapist will give you their opinion about whether, and if, you meet criteria for a certain diagnosis and why. After the intake, we will let you know if we think we can help you reach your therapy goals and if not, we will provide a referral to an outside provider or practice that is a better fit to address your needs. We will recommend a type of treatment (such as CBT, DBT, or ERP) and explain why and what this will look like. 

    • If you like what you hear and we agree we can help you, you’re free to make your first individual therapy appointment with us after the intake. 

    • This depends on what you’re looking for and how significant your concerns are. For most of our clients, we work with them from 6 months to a year. Many clients work with us for a few years.

    • Some clients work with us for several months, and then drop down to a “maintenance” schedule. This means that the client has reached their therapy goals and has decided to continue therapy at a reduced frequency, such as every other week, monthly, or every three months.

    • At any point, you are free to stop or pause therapy. 

    • Therapy consists of a 45-minute individual session once a week. Depending on the severity and urgency of what you’re coming to therapy for, we may recommend twice-weekly sessions.

    • For clients in our comprehensive DBT program, we ask that you commit to one 45-minute individual therapy session once a week and a 90-minute DBT skills group once a week for at least a 6-month period.

    • Often comprehensive DBT lasts 1 year or longer to make sure the most effective skills and strategies are generalized and deeply embedded into an individual’s lifestyle. 

    • For teenagers and their caregivers in our comprehensive DBT program, in addition to weekly individual and weekly skills group, you also have the option to see a therapist at our practice for as needed family therapy or parent coaching sessions.

    • We often have one therapist working with the teenager in the family and another therapist working with the parents for parent coaching. 

Services

    • Parenting a teen, especially one who is struggling with their mental health, is one of the hardest jobs. We find parents often feel paralyzed (i.e. “damned if you do, damned if you don’t”) and/or scared and traumatized after their teen has gone through a hospitalization.

    • Parent coaching is an add-on to comprehensive DBT to give parents specific DBT skills and strategies to help them regulate their own emotions, feel more connected to their parenting values and goals, and support their teenager.

    • We are here to support you and give you tools to be a knowledgeable and effective parent during these adolescent years. 

    • Parent coaching is not exclusive to DBT. It is also offered to parents who are looking for extra advice as they navigate parenting challenges throughout their child(ren)’s lifespan.

    • Parenting doesn’t come with a handbook (unfortunately!), but we are here to guide you, give you some tools and tricks to make the childhood, teenage, and young adult life stages a bit more manageable.

    • Whether you have a child with depression, anxiety, OCD, or ADHD (or all of the above), or whether you have a young adult who can’t seem to find their own independence, we are here to help.

    • We will never force you to do anything you don’t want to do.

    • After the intake, if our clinical recommendation is comprehensive DBT (which includes group), we will explain in detail why we are making this recommendation, which is often related to why you’re seeking therapy. We will explain how DBT specifically can help you achieve your therapy goals.

    • We will provide our clinical rationale and let you choose. We want to make sure you have all the pertinent information about DBT (clarify any myths out there) and make you an informed, educated consumer in your own treatment.

    • Ultimately, if you’re not comfortable with our treatment recommendation, you are, of course, free to choose to receive treatment elsewhere.

    • We provide outpatient therapy for adolescents, young adults, and adults
      living with the following:

    • ADHD, Anger and/or irritability, Anxiety, Body image concerns, Depression, Disordered eating, Emotional dysregulation, Family conflict, Life transitions, Low self-esteem, Obsessive-compulsive disorder, Parenting challenges, Relationship trauma, School avoidance, Self-harm and Suicidal behaviors, Social anxiety and Trauma

    • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, Exposure Response Prevention & Cognitive Processing Therapy

    • For more information about DBT and CBT, click here.

Appointments

    • Yes, we offer in-person therapy at our Newbury, MA location. 

    • Yes, we offer virtual therapy in the following states:

      • AL, AZ, AR, CO, CT, DE, FL, GA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, ME, MD, MI, MN, MO, MS, MT, NE, NV, NH, NJ, NY, NC, ND, OH, OK, PA, RI, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, VT, VA, WA, WV, WI & WY

    • Yes, we offer a complimentary 15-minute phone consultation.

    • We have a 24-hour cancellation and reschedule policy. 

    • If you cancel or reschedule within 24 hours of your appointment, you’ll be charged the full fee.

Insurance & Fees

    • Our fees range from $200 to $350 for a standard 45-minute therapy session. 

    • Our 90-minute DBT Skills Group is $150 per family.

    • We are committed to making high-quality, evidence-based mental health services accessible to people, regardless of their financial means. To this end, we dedicate 25% of our caseload to clients who qualify for financial aid and require a sliding scale or lower fee. 

    • If we cannot provide services within your means, we will provide a list of at least two referrals to providers or practices that offer lower-fee services or services that are covered by your insurance. 

    • Mindful Behavioral Health is an out-of-network service provider. We do not accept insurance, however, many insurance carriers reimburse a portion of fees associated with out-of-network therapy services. We provide statements of all services provided with the necessary information so that you can submit this to your insurance company for reimbursement.

    • Some, not all, insurance plans provide reimbursement for out of network therapy services. We suggest that you contact your insurance company to find out if, and how much, they will reimburse you. Contact the Behavioral Health department of your insurance company and let them know that you will begin seeing an out of network mental health clinician for outpatient behavioral health therapy. Ask them how much they reimburse for the following CPT codes:

    • 90834 - 45 min individual psychotherapy

    • 90791 - 90 min diagnostic psychiatric intake appointment

    • A Superbill is a detailed receipt that provides information about the therapy services you received, including the date of service, type of service, and cost. You will receive a superbill from the practice at the end of each month. If you have an out-of-network insurance plan, you may be able to submit a superbill to your insurance company for potential reimbursement.

    • We ask for payment after every session and will typically process the credit card you put on file in your client portal. After you submit claims, you will be reimbursed directly from your insurance company. 

    • Flexible spending accounts (FSA) and health savings accounts (HSA) are like personal savings accounts for medical expenses. The funds in these accounts are deposited on a pre-tax basis and can be applied to our services.

    • You are free to enter your FSA or HSA card number into your client portal and we will process payment using this card.

    • Once you are an established client, you will have access to your client portal. You will be able to download and print your Superbill from your client portal.

      • Click here for client portal access.

      • Click on “I’m an existing client.”

      • Enter your email, and you will be sent a link to your client portal in your email inbox.

      • Click on that link, and you’ll be immediately sent to your client portal.

      • Click on “Billings and Payments”

      • Click on “Billing Documents”

      • Scroll down and click on “Insurance Reimbursement Statements”

      • There you will find your monthly Superbills, which you can download and print.

    • You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the cost of treatment under the No Surprises Act. As such, we will provide you with an estimate of the expected cost of treatment at your request. For questions or more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate, visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises or call 800-985-3059.

Commonly Asked Questions

    • Yes. Virtual therapy sessions are confidential and are conducted through a secure, HIPAA-compliant Zoom platform.

    • We work with clients across the lifespan from adolescents through adulthood. 

    • We currently predominantly work with individuals. We offer parent coaching as described above. Family and couples sessions can be offered on a case-by-case basis. 

    • We offer a DBT Multifamily Skills group for adolescents and parents and caregivers.