MENTAL HEALTH CARE GOOD FAITH ESTIMATE

You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your medical and mental health care will cost.

Under the law, health care providers need to give patients who don’t have insurance or who are not using insurance an estimate of the bill for medical and mental health services. 

You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost of non-emergency medical and mental health care services. This includes costs related to mental health counseling and therapy services (evaluation and psychotherapy). 

Your health care provider gives you a Good Faith Estimate in writing at least 1 business day before your medical or mental health service. You can also ask your health care provider, and any other provider you choose, for a Good Faith Estimate before you schedule an item or service. 

That will be available to you prior to you being seen for services and prior to any billing and is available to you in the informed consent.  In most cases it is impossible to estimate how many sessions you will need, and that will not be determined until your concerns are evaluated and will also vary based on the progress that you make, which depends in part on your efforts with the process.  You will be free to discontinue services at any time or the services may otherwise be terminated in accordance with the informed consent form language.

If you receive a bill that is at least $400 more than your Good Faith Estimate, you can dispute the bill. 

Although the No Surprises Law says that you may initiate a dispute process if the actual charges are substantially in excess of the Good Faith Estimated charges, i.e. if you are charged $400 more than the estimated cost for a session or for the total estimate provided, that is unlikely to happen and would be a violation of licensing board rules, since you will be agreeing up front to actual charges per session prior to being seen. 

The Informed Consent process that occurs during registration includes our Financial Policies and Service Fees, and you can reference fees when you read and sign the informed consent before treatment begins.

Visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises for more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate.