Anxiety Relief

Payment Policy and Fees

The Anxiety Research and Treatment Clinic is a fee for service practice. This means that all of our therapists receive full payment at the time of service. It is our philosophy that our commitment and time is best spent providing individualized services of the highest quality and confidentiality, while minimizing unnecessary bureaucratic details or delays in treatment.

Thus, like many anxiety specialty programs across the country, we at this time DO NOT bill insurance and ARE NOT participating providers for any insurance plans.  Our licensed supervising staff are considered "Out of Network" providers, and we cannot guarantee that insurance companies will reimburse any or all expenses for direct or supervised services.  However, we will provide you with a statement suitable for submitting to insurance on your own should you choose to do so.  Some insurance companiess will work with their members regarding these treatments.  We will gladly provide brief summaries of the recommended evidenced based treatments and clinical rationale for our treatment plans.  While many patients are successful in seeking reimbursement for at least a portion of their therapy fees, please remember that reimbursement is considered a matter between you and your insurance company.  Always check with them directly for questions about your coverage.

ARTC staff will give you a statement for each treatment session provided. This statement will have the necessary CPT and diagnosis codes that will allow you to submit your treatment to your insurance company should you choose to access your out of network insurance benefits. We will also complete any necessary paperwork that your insurance company provides. If a report is needed, or if extensive consultation with your insurance company is needed we will charge you our hourly fee prorated according to the amount of time required to complete the report or consultation.

We have tried to make payment of your fees simple. You may pay with cash, money order, check, or credit card (Mastercard, Visa, American Express, or Discover). If you decide to pay with your credit card, your statement will maintain your confidentiality and only the initials of our practice, ARTC, will show on your statement. Additionally, parents of children or teens may choose to preauthorize ARTC to charge their credit card for services rendered. This allows your child or teen to attend treatment when you are unable to accompany them without you having to send in a check or credit card with your child.

The Anxiety Research and Treatment Clinic provides multiple types of treatments to suit people's schedules and needs:

Individual Therapy - This type of therapy may occur once a week or multiple times per week depending on the needs of the individual

Intensive Therapy - This type of therapy is for people who need intensive therapy, where the person is seen multiple times per week. This type of therapy may be suited for people who do not have access to these services where they live.

Group therapy - The Anxiety and Research Treatment Clinic offers group therapy for social anxiety and panic disorder.

Individual Therapy

A No-Cost Brief Phone Screen (15-30 minutes) will be conducted prior to scheduling the initial assessment/consultation session in order to determine the appropriateness of the referral question, likelihood of fit for our services, and to answer your questions not covered in these materials.

Full Assessment Process includes a clinical interview lasting one to three hours, a team review of pertinent background information (including prior treatment history, past records and initial contact with other current providers, if applicable), and a session where you will complete a series of standardized assessments. Some preliminary forms will be sent to you for completion prior to your first appointment. Depending on your treatment needs, the first several sessions may also have an assessment and planning focus. However, all appointments after the first session will be charged at our regular service rates. If a patient is home-bound, the initial assessment will include additional fees for travel time.

		Master’s Level Fees	Doctor Level Fees
	Individual Therapy:	$125 per session	$165 per session
	Initial Assessment /Evaluation:	$190 per session	$190 per session

Intensive Treatment Program

This treatment is a highly specialized, very intensive form of psychotherapy. It is administered in an intense format. While a person is here, he or she devotes full time to the treatment. Much of the time (on the order of 15-20 hours) he or she is working with a therapist, but that is heavily supplemented with reading and other assignments. The goal is to have patients working independently of the therapist. In addition, it is crucial that patients are willing to experience considerable anxiety during portions of the treatment, in order to overcome their disorder. The therapists are psychologists, advanced doctoral students in clinical psychology, or post- doctoral fellows, who have been highly trained in this treatment.

Is This Program Right for You?

This program is right for only a small percentage of people with anxiety problems. There are also some medical and psychiatric conditions that would make this form of treatment inadvisable for some people or would detract considerably from its effectiveness. Examples are substantial depression, psychotic symptoms, use of certain drugs or excessive alcohol, problems with comprehension, and medical problems that need stabilization or substantially limit physical activity. We will do a diagnostic assessment to determine whether a person is appropriate for the program from a psychiatric standpoint. You also need to have had a medical evaluation within the past year. And as mentioned earlier, the person must be willing to experience considerable anxiety and during the course of treatment. This is essential to recovery. If the person is not willing to do that, this treatment will not work.

Even if this program is suitable for the person, there are other effective, less expensive treatments, including standard forms of cognitive behavioral therapy that are typically conducted on a weekly basis over a period of three or four months. This program was designed for people who do not have access to other forms of treatment, have not responded to them, have time constraints, or prefer a very intensive form of therapy.

Cost

The cost of an assessment via phone is $300, and the cost of treatment is $2,500 per week. The amount for treatment is payable on the first day. In addition, you will need to pay any costs necessary for the out-of-office work (for example, car rentals, transportation fares, other costs of travel away from the clinic, or admission fees) for both yourself and, if the therapist needs to come along, for the therapist. If you stay in a hotel while you are in Fort Lauderdale (which we recommend that you do), we can assist you with reservations and may be able to get you a slightly discounted rate. We do not provide accommodations. We regret that we do not accept insurance and cannot guarantee that insurance companies will reimburse you for the program (see note below on insurance). However, we will be glad to provide a statement that can be submitted to insurance companies.

Screening Procedure

Because of the significant cost and effort the intensive program entails, we want to be sure that the persons we accept are good candidates for this form of treatment. To help us evaluate that, we do a careful assessment by telephone and mail before we offer treatment. The assessments involve several steps, beginning with a telephone screen by one of our staff. These are standard questionnaires that we use routinely with patients we see in our Center, and they will give us a clearer picture of the anxiety problem.

After we receive your completed questionnaires, one of our staff (generally the person who would be your therapist) will call you to discuss the results and, if things are still positive, conduct or arrange for the final step in the screening process, a detailed diagnostic interview by phone. Following that interview, we can talk to you knowledgeably regarding treatment. We regret putting the many hoops before treatment, but we want to make sure that the treatment will be beneficial and it may save time and additional money.

We urge the person to consider carefully whether this is the kind of treatment he or she wants. If the person has doubts, it probably would be better to start with a more standard form of therapy closer to where you live.

Exposure Sessions that occur outside the office are billed at the same rate as treatment that is provided inside the office. Your therapist will prorate their time and use arithmetic rounding in 5 minute increments to determine your fee. Time spent by your therapist traveling to your home or to off-site locations for exposure therapy, IEP meetings, other consultations, or time spent in after hours phone calls, will be billed in the same prorated manner. If you require extensive off-site consultations, we will attempt to match you with an AATC therapist who resides as close to you as possible, in order to minimize travel time expenses.

CANCELATIONS AND LATE PAYMENTS Your appointment time is expressly reserved for you.  Chronic lateness and missed appointments greatly interfere with this therapy.  Strategies towards alleviating those difficulties may be addressed with your therapist.  No Shows and Cancelations without 24-hours notice will be subject to the full session fee, and Late Charges may be assessed at our discretion.

PLEASE NOTE that our clinic is not designed to provide ongoing crisis management for issues such as substance abuse, active suicidality, violence, or psychoses.  If at any time you believe you need a higher level of services for these types of issues, please discuss this with the clinic director and we will assist you in locating an appropriate referral.  ALWAYS call 911 and/or report to the nearest emergency room for medical care during a psychiatric emergency.

Best Anxiety Treatment in Fort Lauderdale www.anxietytreatmentclinic.org