Appointments & Fees

We have office hours every day of the week by appointment. If our schedules are full, we will do our best to offer referrals to trusted colleagues. Because of our specialized work, we sometimes keep a time-limited wait list for those interested. Appointments are 50 minutes. We reserve regular weekly times for our clients and see this as a mutual commitment.

We use a HIPAA-compliant electronic health record in our practice. When we set up your initial appointment, you will receive a private link to our secure client portal via email. You can complete all intake paperwork, including electronic signatures, in the portal. For future reference, there is a link to the portal for established clients in the top right corner of this website.

At your first appointment, we will focus on assessing your concerns and beginning to develop a plan for addressing them. We are happy to speak with you and answer any questions you have by phone, Zoom/teleconference, or email prior to scheduling an appointment. (Please know that while we will keep your emails private, confidentiality cannot be ensured, as it is possible for emails to be intercepted during transmission and may remain on the servers of both of our email providers.)

Fees

Evanston Relational Psychotherapy accepts Zelle (a bank-to-bank payment platform that has many member banks), checks, or cash at the time of service.

As part of our commitment to social justice and accessibility, each of us offers some reduced rate appointment slots for clients who are an especially good fit for what we offer and for whom our standard fees would be a significant barrier. Please discuss this with us at your initial contact and we can let you know whether there is current availability for a sliding scale spot. While, as a small practice, we are limited in the number of sliding scale fees we can offer, we contribute monthly to organizations that facilitate access to mental health care for all. Since 2020, we have contributed monthly to The Loveland Foundation, an organization supporting access to therapy services for Black women and girls. They’re a great organization — check them out.

Our fees, based on licensure, certifications, and years of experience:

Amy Steinhauer’s session fee: $225
Krista Wilson’s session fee: $140

Insurance

Evanston Relational Psychotherapy does not participate in any insurance panels, so we are considered out-of-network providers. Likewise, we are opted out of the Medicare system. We are eligible to see Medicare beneficiaries under a private contract, where Medicare cannot be billed.

Individual Clients:

Monthly superbills (insurance statements) are available for our individual clients in our client portal. You may submit the superbills to your (non-Medicare) insurance company for reimbursement based on your plan. Please know that if you submit statements to insurance, they will require a mental health diagnosis code, and sometimes require further information such as treatment plans and progress notes.

Insurance companies have a medically based model, and require that treatment is ‘medically necessary.’ This model is based on functioning level and symptom relief, rather than on depth of understanding, satisfaction, happiness, connection, pleasure or meaningful experience. Sometimes the medical model fits well with a person’s psychotherapy needs and sometimes it does not. With this as with other things, we believe it is good to be informed about risks and benefits, pros and cons, in order to make the best decisions you can make for yourself. We strongly recommend contacting your insurance company if you wish to use insurance to ask about your out-of-network mental health benefits.

Couple Therapy Clients:

Many insurance companies do not pay for couple therapy. While we used to provide superbills for couple therapy, in the rare instance that the services may be covered, we have come to understand that the requirements of insurance are incongruent with our model of couples treatment. For instance, because it is a medical model, we would have to assign one person as the “Patient,” assign that person a diagnosis code, and ensure that the treatment and related documentation is focused on alleviating that one person’s mental health problem. The other partner does not even formally become our client - they are seen as an “adjunct” to the first person’s treatment. Additionally, if there is an audit and these things are not in place, insurance companies can initiate “clawbacks,” where they will recoup money from you that they have reimbursed for your care.

Instead, our model of couples care is one where you are both our clients, and we are treating your relationship. For this kind of care, we are unable to provide superbills. Please ask if you have further questions about this.

Notice of Privacy Practices

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Notice of Privacy Practices

No Surprises Act Notice

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Your Rights and Protections Against Surprise Medical Bills