Session rates are $200/ 50-minutes, consistent with the fee schedule set by the Psychologists Association of Alberta.
If you would like to use your benefit coverage to attend therapy sessions, it’s recommend to confirm your personal coverage details with you benefit provider before booking your first session. Doing so will mean you’ll feel informed on what amount if any may be direct billed or reimbursed to you by your provider, and what amount will be an out-of-pocket expense.
We recommend asking your benefit provider:
→ the amount covered per year
→ the amount covered per session (this may be a flat dollar amount, or a % value)
→ the date on which when your benefits renew each year
→ whether you have an additional health-spending account to access in addition to any regular counselling coverage
→ what services are covered (eg. you may need to see a Registered Psychologist to access reimbursement, which would mean your coverage may not apply for meeting with a student therapists. Many providers will cover a student who is supervised by a psychologist, but this is determined by your unique provider.)
Once you know the details of your benefit coverage, you may include this in your initial information while setting up your client file or mention this to your therapist. For some clients, this information can be helpful in determining how to best spread sessions out across the year, and whether it makes sense to consider seeking out sliding scale rates at the outset of therapy.
Liferoots offers direct billing for clients as we’re able to. Please note that while we do our best to offer direct billing, there are instances where we’re not able to access direct billing on a client’s behalf, as hoped. We ask clients to be aware that direct billing is not a guarantee, and that we ask clients to keep backup payment method on file for use in these instances.
Please let your therapist know if you would like to use direct billing through any of these providers
- Alberta Blue Cross
- Alberta School Employee Benefit Plan (ASEBP) Insurance
- Medavie Blue Cross
- Canadian Armed Forces (CAF)
- Veterans Affairs (VAC)
- Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP)
- Chamber of Commerce Group Insurance
- CINUP
- ClaimSecure
- First Canadian
- GroupHEALTH
- GroupSource
- Johnston Group Inc.
- Manion
- Maximum Benefit
For those who have a benefit provider that’s not included in our list below, feel free to reach out and we can confirm if direct billing may be possible for you. If not, we will provide a receipt that you may be able to use to access reimbursement, though it’s recommended you double-check with your insurance provider about your unique coverage.
Full or partial coverage may be provided by private insurance plans and/or employee assistance benefit programs. We’re unable to offer direct billing for some of our clients, as not all providers allow direct billing and we are not set up with every provider. If this is the case for you, you will receive a detailed receipt after each appointment. You may use your receipt to seek reimbursement from your benefit provider if our services align with their coverage policies.
It’s anticipated that, occasionally, that life circumstance will prevent our clients from attending their scheduled session, as hoped. We ask clients to keep this in mind when booking their appointments.
There are other practices in our community that offer a range of forgiveness policies related to appointments that are late-cancelled/ no-showed, ranging from fairly-lenient to requiring upwards of 3 days notice to avoid a missed-session fee.
At LifeRoots, you are able to reschedule appointments up to 24 hours before a session.
Within the 24-hour window, your therapist’s schedule is already set for the coming day, and it is unlikely they will be able to fill the spot they reserved for you with another client. We ask our clients to be aware that session will be billed, regardless of attendance, unless we’re provided 24-hours notice. This information is also detailed in our consent form that is shared with each client at the start of therapy.
This policy helps us to reliably support of therapists, with the understanding that consistent compensation for their time helps them feel valued and able to continue to showing up and do important work with their clients, day after day.
Once you’ve scheduled your first therapy appointment, you will receive an email with everything you’ll need from us to get started. This includes a link to join your online sessions (the same link can be used every time), your intake/ consent form, as well as a quick form to submit your benefit plan details. Simple!
Receipts are emailed automatically once sessions are billed. Our admin will usually bill for a session anywhere from immediately after your appointment, up to a few days later. If you have insurance coverage, you may notice two receipts, one indicating the coverage from your provider that was applied to your balance as well as any remaining balance put through on your credit card.
Clients may access a combination of reduced-rate sessions and/ or personal benefit coverage to attend ongoing sessions. If you are ready to receive support, and believe a full session rate may be inaccessible to you to sustain, we recommend meeting with one of our skilled student therapists for $60/ individuals or $80/ couples. You may also let us know that you’d appreciate some referrals for further reduced-rate options within the greater community.
We currently accept credit card as a method of payment. If you’re looking for a practice who offers additional payment options, we are happy to offer thoughtful referrals with this in mind!
For those with benefit coverage, direct billing refers to the convenience of having a benefit provider pay a portion of the session fee. Direct billing means you pay less fees out-of-pocket, and also saves you time as the need to manually file a claim in order to be reimbursed for services covered by your provider is eliminated by our office taking care of this on your behalf.
Fees for psychological services may be claimed under tax deductible health care expenses on your income tax return.