Overview & Fees
Therapy is an investment into you and your wellness
The full fee for a 50 minute session varies with each individual therapist, please check their individual pages.
Contact us to schedule a 15-30 minute phone or video consultation where you can check to see if you and your therapist are a good fit.
Some Important Notes
If you are looking for psychotherapy, Videochat or Telephone sessions are available for California residents only. This is due to federal regulations that require that therapists only offer psychotherapy services within the state they are licensed in.
Nokdu Therapy is committed to dedicating a portion of our time to sliding scale services. These slots are reserved for people who are financially unable to afford the full fee. This as considered a part of our larger mission to strive for racial, gender, sexual, and disability justice. Please contact us to get more information. Please look below for more context regarding the fees.
A superbill/receipt can be provided if you want to use your PPO or EPO for reimbursement. You can confirm with your health insurance company whether they will reimburse out-of-network services.
Why The Cost?
Inspired by Melissa Lopez from Counseling for All Seasons, we endeavor to practice transparency regarding our fees. Many people may wonder about why the cost of therapy is set at $150-$250 per session in Southern California. Many people may have hesitated in taking the first step to initiate therapy because of the price. There will of course be therapists out there who are charging an exorbitant amount to make a lot of money. There is, however, a rhyme and reason to the fees for most therapists. So what is the logic behind setting this fee?
Becoming a Therapist Costs Money
Many therapists go through several years of schooling to be able to do this work, and most have amassed a significant amount of student debt to do so. In addition, therapists must pay a lot of money for prerequisite courses, study materials, and exams to eventually become a licensed professional. Some also have to pay for a supervisor to be able to accumulate the hours to become licensed. Therapists must also pay to take a certain number of classes every few years, which also cost money. If you think about the amount people pay CPAs, paralegals, lawyers, and medical doctors for their time, the fee for a therapist may not come as much of a surprise. Therapy, however, is a feminized form of labor because it is associated with “talking about feelings”, which may cause us as a society to view it as a less valuable service. Of course in an ideal world, ALL of these services would be much more affordable and every person would have a right to these services regardless of their income. In the meantime, we resort to creative solutions to balance worker sustainability and consumer access.
Staying a Therapist Costs Money
Therapists have to pay for continuing education units to maintain their license and to stay updated on current, developing knowledge and approaches within the field. Additionally, therapists pay out of pocket to get trained, supervised, and certified in evidence-based approaches to best support clients. Just getting certified in EMDR, for example, costs approximately $4,000 (which doesn’t include the ongoing investment required to keep the certification).
Maintaining a Business Costs Money.
With the housing crisis in LA, rent is exorbitantly high. Most therapists are paying rent for their work space, which is sometimes just as expensive as (if not more than) the rent that is paid for living space. There are additional expenses like paying for utilities, websites, outreach materials, email memberships, documentation systems, and more.
Insurance and Benefits
Therapists have a variety of insurances to pay for that companies may normally cover for an employee. For example, there is liability insurance in the case that a therapist is taken to court. Then there’s the multitudes of benefits that self-employed people must pay for, including health insurance, dental insurance, vacation days, retirement plans and more. Health insurance alone can cost up to thousands of dollars per month.
Extra Labor
Outside of the hours spent directly with a client, therapists also have to write notes on every session, maintain other documentation like treatment plans, manage communications like phone calls and emails, handle a budget, conduct outreach, do research on relevant issues for clients, and consult with other professionals to continue to refine their skills. Essentially, therapists need to charge more if they are only being paid for 25 hours of the 40 hours actually worked. Additionally, clients will of course cancel sessions, go on trips, and have other circumstances that arise, which will result in fewer paid hours for the therapist.
Why Not Take Insurance?
Insurance companies often require many things of therapists who decide to work with third party payers. One expectation is that all clients must have a mental health diagnosis (often from a limited list of diagnoses determined by the insurance company) to be covered. Coverage is often temporary, or insurance companies will no longer cover services when the diagnosis is in remission, which makes it difficult for therapists to engage in the long-term, consistent work from which most clients would benefit. These requirements can place barriers for therapists in taking a preventative, non-pathological approach.
Insurance companies also tend to reimburse therapists a very low amount (as low as $30 per session), and it is difficult to sustain a practice with these rates. It is a well known fact that insurance companies will reimburse therapists significantly less than other health care professions like medical doctors. There’s also a mountain of paperwork and bureaucratic processes that require hours of additional labor on a therapist’s part. This limits how many clients a therapist can take on, or can require an additional staff person who would need to be paid to do this work.
The limited coverage offered by insurance companies is unfortunately a reflection of larger society’s view that mental health is not a basic right for every individual. Considering these structural barriers, we personally choose not to take insurance, and to instead offer sliding scale spots to meet people’s various financial needs. Sliding our fees down allows us to provide services at a more affordable cost without having to fulfill insurance companies’ many (often problematic) requirements.
Considerations for Sliding Scale
Nokdu Therapy hopes strives to provide sliding scale fees for those who need it. Inspired by AWARE, here are some things to consider when deciding whether to ask for sliding scale fees, and how much to ask for.
Fees lower than $150/session are for those without access to generational wealth to help pay living expenses, and for those unable or struggling to meet basic needs. People who need a fee below $80 may:
Receive public assistance
Support multiple dependents
Have limited savings
Are formerly incarcerated
Are undocumented
Work in sectors out of necessity that have been criminalized
Have significant debt that interferes with access to basic needs
Have limited access to generational wealth due to abuse and trauma
Have a chronic illness or disability that impacts ability to earn an income
Have no access to health insurance
Be under various other circumstances that limit access to a stable income.
Fees $150+/session are for those who are able to meet basic needs but have limited expendable income. Consider paying higher on the sliding scale if you:
Have few or no dependents
Have savings, investments, property, inherited money, or retirement accounts
Have the option to ask others for support (even if you don’t want to)
Travel for fun
Have high credit scores
Work part time by choice
Have potential earning power even if it’s not immediately apparent, because you are able bodied, have a college degree, have generational wealth, or because of your gender, race, etc.
More Readings on Sliding Scale & Economic Justice:
https://www.wortsandcunning.com/blog/sliding-scale
https://www.ridefreefearlessmoney.com/blog/2016/05/sliding-scale-1/
If you are unable to pay a typical full fee for a private practice therapist, here are some options:
Ask therapists if they have a sliding scale spot available, and how low they can slide.
The Open Path Collective is a directory of therapists with sliding scale spots available. Their therapists can bring their fee down as low as $30/session for members.
If you are a student, you can receive free or discounted therapy through your school.
Look for therapy practices/agencies/firms. These practices tend to be more affordable because multiple people are paying the fees to maintain the business.
Look for sliding scale counseling centers (many of them are nonprofits and training centers for students and pre-licensed staff) that set the fee based on your income. Examples of these agencies include the Relational Center and the Southern California Counseling Center.
If you work for a company, look into getting services through an EAP program.
Use a directory to filter for therapists who do accept your insurance! Some options include:
Psychology Today
Latinx Therapy
Therapy for Black Girls
National Queer Trans Therapists of Color network
Melanin and Mental Health
Therapy Den
Inclusive Therapists
STANDARD NOTICE
You have the right to receive a “Good Faith Estimate” explaining how much your medical 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 items and services. You have the right to receive a Good Faith Estimate for the total expected cost of any non-emergency items or services. Make sure your health care provider gives you a Good Faith Estimate in writing at least 1 business day before your medical service or item. 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. If you receive a bill that is at least $400 more than your Good Faith Estimate, you can dispute the bill. Make sure to save a copy or picture of your Good Faith Estimate. For questions or more information about your right to a Good Faith Estimate, visit www.cms.gov/nosurprises.