Costs & Insurance
What does therapy cost?
We understand that our clients are often financially fastidious. We work best with clients who, for a return on your health and flourishing, are willing to face, in the present moment, the very thing that brings you distress. If you are concerned about cost, we encourage you to schedule a complimentary consultation so we can discuss your specific situation. When people are genuinely invested in the process and motivated for change, they see the best outcomes. Those who aren't meaningfully engaged tend to spin their wheels without finding real traction. We want to make sure you have a strong alignment and a genuine relationship with your counselor—because that's one of the strongest predictors of positive outcomes.
If we are a fit, don’t let finances dissuade your interest. We can talk during the consultation about what finances can work for you, and what we may have to offer to help out.
Do you take insurance?
We are an out-of-network, private-pay practice. We don’t bill insurance directly — and we want to explain why, because the reason relates to the quality of your care.
Deeper Stories operates as a private-pay practice. This is a deliberate clinical decision. Most insurance-based care is built on a pathologizing medical model. Treatment is authorized once there's a diagnosable disorder, reimbursed while symptoms justify it, and concluded when the billing criteria are no longer met. We're built for something different. We offer a proactive model of care concerned with human formation, resilience, and flourishing, not only the relief of acute distress. Much of the meaningful work people bring to us—discernment, grief, vocational and spiritual struggle, relational repair, preventing or recovery from burnout, spiritual abuse recovery, to name a few—doesn't fit a medical model frame, and we don't think it should have to. Operating outside insurance frees us in a few concrete ways.
A note for Medicaid beneficiaries: We are not Medicaid approved providers. Therefore, we cannot receive funds of any kind from Medicaid recipients, which means we are unable to provide services at this time.
A note for Medicare beneficiaries: Our practice has opted out of Medicare. By law, this means Medicare will not reimburse for our services, and these sessions cannot be submitted to Medicare for reimbursement. We'll provide a private agreement outlining this before we begin working together.
Help that can follow your actual story without a required diagnosis.
Insurance reimbursement requires assigning a diagnosis upfront, but this is often required before a clinician knows you well enough to make one responsibly. Private pay lets us meet you where you actually are, rather than where a billing category requires you to be. We treat health as something we build toward, not just a disorder we resolve.
Real counseling is rarely linear. What begins as depression might reveal unprocessed grief, which opens onto relational trauma, which shifts the clinical picture entirely. The insurance authorization process can struggle to keep pace with that kind of unfolding complexity. Working outside that system means your treatment can evolve with your actual healing, without those structural limitations.
Your privacy stays private.
Reimbursement means ongoing disclosures to a third party. Your diagnosis, your records on request, and the trajectory of your care become part of a permanent record. It's important to know that a diagnosis, once issued, can be very difficult to remove from your permanent medical record. In the interest of informed consent, we don't recommend using insurance simply to avoid upfront costs—because a diagnosis on your record can create downstream complications with life insurance, employment (especially for service members or security clearances), and other areas of your life. Our commitment is to what actually helps you flourish, not to what an insurance form requires.
Time spent on you, not on administrative overhead.
Insurance work redirects clinical energy toward authorizations, audits, and documentation written for reviewers rather than for your care. We invest that time in the work itself.
Fit and continuity over coverage.
We set the length and shape of care collaboratively with you. It is governed by what serves your growth, not by what a benefit plan permits.
We're glad to provide a superbill you can submit for possible out-of-network reimbursement, and we're happy to talk openly about cost and fit before you begin.
What does “out-of-network” mean?
An out-of-network counselor doesn’t contract with insurance companies. You pay for sessions directly, and we can provide a “superbill” (a receipt of services plus a diagnostic code) you may submit to your insurer for partial reimbursement under out-of-network benefits. Below are the steps for this process.
Check your statement of benefits for “out of network behavioral health” benefits. You will usually find a percentage or dollar amount. You may also be required to meet a deductible first. You can check this event before your first consultation or session if you’d like.
Let your clinician know that you’d like a superbill, which means that you two will have a conversation about a diagnosis that fits, if this is applicable.
Your clinician will send you a superbill through your portal and you will then submit that to your insurance company for reimbursement.
Schedule a complimentary 30-minute consultation
We know that counseling works best when there's alignment between what you're looking for and how we work. A consultation gives us a chance to get to know your background, what you're hoping to accomplish, and whether our approach is the right match for you. If it is, we move forward together. If it's not, we'll explore other options to get you the help you seek.