Due to public health recommendations, all sessions are currently being held via video on your phone or computer.

HOWEVER, your insurance plan may or may not cover telehealth sessions, or may not offer the same benefits as with in-office sessions.  Coverage varies by insurance company, and even from plan to plan.  So we recommend you call your insurance company to verify your benefits.

Many insurance plans are covering telehealth appointments in full with no cost to you!

Call Your Insurance Company

Despite the potential for confusion and misinformation, we recommend you call your insurance company using the number on the back of your insurance card and ask whether your plan covers telehealth for routine outpatient psychotherapy sessions.

If you are a current patient at CHC, to help reduce the chances of misunderstanding or miscommunication, we recommend you follow this script:

1. Tell the agent that you have been seeing therapist [your therapist’s name here] for psychotherapy sessions at their office, but given the COVID-19 pandemic, you wish to switch to having telehealth sessions via video from home.

2. Tell the agent that [your therapist] has told you that they are fully licensed for, and have the ability to provide, fully compliant telehealth sessions in the State of Michigan.

3. Ask the agent to please find the claims that [your therapist] has been submitting for your in-office psychotherapy sessions. They should be able to find these via your therapist’s name.

4. Tell the agent that [your therapist] said that the claims they will submit for the telehealth sessions will be nearly identical to the claims they have been submitting, except that rather than indicating the sessions were performed in an office, the claims will indicate they were performed via telehealth.

5. Ask the agent to tell you what your benefit is for those telehealth sessions. Are they covered as an in-network benefit, an out-of-network benefit, or not at all? Do you have any cost sharing responsibility (copay, coinsurance, and/or deductible)? Do the telehealth sessions require pre-authorization, or are there any other limitations?

6. Ask the agent for their name and a reference number for the call, and write these things down along with the date and time of your call, and the information they provided you. If the insurance company processes the claims differently, then having this information about your call will enable an appeal, if necessary.