Happy holidays everyone!
I hope that you all have been spending some time with your loved ones or relaxing this holiday season so far.
End of the year means time for end-of-year updates for the practice and plans for the coming year. It’s an exciting time! There will be more changes occurring this next year compared to last year, so buckle up.
First things first, the general notices that go out every year.
1. Your health insurance deductible is likely resetting Jan 1st. Thus there’s a good chance I’ll resume charging cards on file for those who have met their deductibles/OOP maxes for the 2022 calendar year. If you need to change your payment on file with me, please let me know.
2. It’s time to catch up on past due balances! I will be reaching out to those who have current balances with me to talk about catching up for the tax year. It’s important that we keep up with our balances: I do not send past due balances to collections but I may decline to resume services for patients with past due balances.
3. Your employer may be changing insurance benefits or plans on Jan 1st. Same if you applied for a different ACA Marketplace plan. Please let me know if your insurance is changing ASAP so I can adapt. I take MOST commercial insurance plans by this point that are common in FL. If you do not inform me of any insurance changes and I get denials from insurance claim submissions, then you may find yourself paying my full private fee.
4. I will be going around getting new ROIs for the year and updating any signatures needed for paperwork. Expect a little admin time during our first session over the new year.
Now for a few small changes in the practice:
1. I will be changing the no-call-no-show/late-cancel fee: It will now be a flat $85 for everyone as opposed to the full fee of your appointment. This will make it easier for everyone to understand as well as myself keeping it consistent across everyone. Remember, insurance will not cover a missed appointment.
2. My overall fees will be increasing starting Jan 1st. The sliding scale range will be moving from $85-150 to $95-165 for intakes and individual appointments. This is in line with advances in my own training, inflation, and adjustments in insurance reimbursement rates. As usual, current patients will not see a change in their fees. This new fee structure will be for patients returning after a discharge and those who are new.
3. I’m going to be starting to push out more reminders for completing my outcomes measures. They are the links that you see in your reminder texts and e-mails. The information is helpful for me to better gauge how things are going for each of you in ways that we may not discuss fully in session.
4. I’m looking at possibly making some changes to my hours over the next year. Nothing will be changing right away. Since I offer evening appointments up until 8pm, I’m thinking that over time I may phase out my Saturday availability to have two days off in a week. I may adjust my Friday hours slightly to help accommodate. This is still in the brainstorming stages, though.
5. My website is going to be seeing more updates over time- mostly small things outside of adding some new services into it (explained below).
Now, for bigger changes in the practice!
1. For those of you who don’t know, I finished my personal trainer education and completed my certification exam back in June 2022. I have been slowly working some elements of personal training education into my work with patients. Now, starting Jan. 1st, I am ready to fully engage in personal training services. This will be something I offer only to existing clients at this time and it will include components of exercise selection, reviewing recordings for proper form and technique, implementing exercise regiments, and basic macro discussions. I’m planning on taking a certification in nutrition to incorporate into my personal training work for this upcoming year.
2. In addition to the nutrition certification, this next year is going to be all about new trainings. I’m currently going through a disaster mental health certification (in light of everything that’s happened over the last few months), and for other clinicians, I am going for my Qualified Supervisor credential. I do a ton of background work on the advocacy and structure side of the mental health field here in Florida, and this is another facet of that. Starting in March I will be offering Qualified Supervision services to Registered Mental Health Counselor Interns.
3. I’m continuing to use technology to incorporate more active elements into my practice for when patients want some extra oomph during the week to help them remain mindful of things we discuss in session or to help complete things during the week. Thus, I am introducing another component into my treatment: Adhere.ly. You will find it here: https://www.adhere.ly/ . It is managed by the same company that provides Doxy.me, the telehealth platform that I use. I’ve been playing with it and I’m liking what I’m seeing so far. It allows me to work with you to automate reminders and activities to be sent to you during the week when we are not together, in case you forget, get overwhelmed, or just want the extra support. I also have tools and stats that I can use to track different things, which will be helpful for me when paired with my outcomes measures to see how you are doing from a numbers standpoint. I will admit, the service itself is still in the early stages and lots of the stuff is BASIC, but I think the reminders itself will be so useful over time. This will be something I offer optionally to patients who would like it. I will provide an extra consent form for this (similar to Sanvello if you were around when I used that) and we will be using this in session to confirm any reminders or things you would like. It is free to you and follows HIPAA compliant security standards. You also do not need an account to use it. It is made for healthcare professionals by a company run by healthcare professionals, which I really like.
I think that’s all for now. 2023 is shaping up to be quite interesting. If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask them in session.
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