Fees & Insurance
Fees
Individual Therapy:
The initial intake session is $150. Ongoing individual sessions are $140. These sessions are generally 45-55 minutes long. Fees will be increased by $10 every year (next increase is June 2025).
Family/Parent Sessions:
Parent sessions are required for minors (11 and under) being seen individually. Parents will be seen every fourth session, after children are seen for three individual sessions. These sessions can range from 30-45 minutes and are $130 per session. Fees will be increased by $10 every year (next increase is June 2025).
I accept payment by credit/debit card (Visa, MasterCard, Discover, etc.) or HSA/FSA cards. Cash is also accepted. NO CHECKS. Card payments will be charged the same business day as the appointment. Payment is processed through OwlPractice via Stripe.
No Show or Late Cancellations:
Sometimes life gets in the way. I require a 24 hour notice for cancellations. I do charge my full session rate for appointments cancelled with less that 24 hours notice. A credit card is kept on file for this purpose. The card must be current with funds on it or it will impact ability to schedule future appointments. NO SHOW appointments are appointments where you are more than 15 minutes late without notifying the therapist of the tardiness. The full fee of the appointment will be charged for NO SHOWS.
Please e-mail at krystle@backtoplaytherapy.net to request further information about your mental health options. For a faster response, e-mail is preferred as I am not always in a situation where I can do a phone call.
Insurance
I currently partner with Headway to accept the following insurances throughout the state of California:
Aetna
Anthem Blue Cross California
Cigna
Blue Shield of California
Quest Behavioral Health
United Healthcare (Optum)
Oxford (Optum)
Outside of those insurance companies - I am a private pay or out-of-network provider. I require full payment for the session at the time of service. Upon your request we can bill through a billing platform called Thrizer. This platform takes the burden off of you in leveraging out-of-network insurance benefits. By paying through Thrizer, claims are automatically submitted to your insurance and the reimbursements are sent to your bank account directly. If this is something you are interested in, please let me know and I will send you an invitation for you to enter your insurance information.
I DO NOT do single case agreements.
Verifying insurance coverage with Headway
I HIGHLY recommend that you reach out directly to your insurance company to confirm Headway is in network with your insurance and to determine exactly what your plan covers and how much you'll need to pay for sessions on Headway. To verify benefits and confirm that Headway and I are in network with your plan, you'll need to call your insurance company's member services or customer service number; you can locate this on the back of your insurance card.
Why should you do this? No billing company can exactly determine your benefits, although Headway provides their "Best Estimate" through an auto-verification system. After claims are filed to your insurance, the fees could change should Headway learn more information about your benefits. There have been cases with other therapists where Headway has made a mistake and found out several months later that they are not actually in network with your insurance. We want to avoid this at all costs which is why I highly suggest you reach out to your insurance and follow the steps below. All fees will be your
responsibility.
1). What you'll need to make the call to your insurance:
Your insurance card (they'll ask for the member's ID and date of birth)
Headway's group name:
Headway California Behavioral Health Services, P.C.
Headway's Tax ID Number (TIN) and National Provider Identifier (NPI):
NPI: 1174292866
TIN: 872475176
Headway's address:
680 E Colorado Blvd Suite 180 & 2nd floor
Pasadena, CA 91101
Therapist's full name and license:
Krystle Briese, LMFT (License LMFT92544)
Therapist's NPI #
NPI 1871838540
2). What to ask when you're on the phone with your insurance:
Once you're speaking with a representative at your insurance company, you can say the following:
"Can you please verify whether a provider group and one of their specific therapists is in network with my plan? I have the provider group's name (Headway), NPI, Tax ID number, and address as well as the therapist's name, NPI, and license number"
From there, the representative should ask for everything they need to verify if we are in network with your plan and what your benefits are.
***Before hanging up, be sure to get your call reference number from the agent. The call reference number helps the Headway team should they need to reach back out to your insurance carrier - you'll need to include this reference number in your response to Headway.