Fees and Insurance
At The Pratt Center, our psychological evaluations are completed by licensed psychologists who meet individually with a student. We do not have interns, testing technicians or educational therapists do any test administration. A comprehensive psychological evaluation includes intelligence, academic, emotional, attentional and memory testing. We may also evaluate adaptive skills and vocational interests if appropriate. Appointments for a comprehensive psychological evaluation include a 90-minute initial interview, three to four 110-minute testing sessions, and a 90-minute final meeting. For children in elementary school, a 60-minute school observation and teacher interview is included. For middle and high school students, a 30-minute adolescent feedback meeting is included. In addition, a psychological evaluation requires time for reviewing records, scoring tests and writing a comprehensive report. Hence, psychological evaluations typically take about twenty hours to complete. We are available to attend school meetings, but that is billed separately from a psychological evaluation.
The rate for a psychological evaluation is $3,400, and families are responsible for payment. A deposit of $1,700 is due at the initial meeting, and the balance is due at the final meeting. If families opt to pay by credit card, then the full payment is due at the time of the initial meeting. When there is potential or pending litigation, such as divorce, all fees are due at the initial meeting. If a family decides to not proceed with a psychological evaluation, they are billed only for the time spent up to that point. When a family is not completing an evaluation, all meetings including office visits, school meetings, extended telephone calls and extended e-mails are billed at the rate of $170 per 50-minute session due at the time of service. We do not accept credit card payments for these services. Rates generally change at the beginning of each year to adjust for inflation. Missed appointments and appointments not cancelled with 48 hours advanced notice are billed at the full hourly rate. We reserve the right to use collection agencies if necessary, and families are responsible for costs related to collection of outstanding accounts. If you are writing a check, please make it payable to The Pratt Center. If you would like to pay by credit card, please click on the Credit Card link to the left.
We do not accept insurance, and we do not call, write of fax insurance companies. Instead, we provide information directly to clients that can be shared with an insurance company. This might include an itemized invoice or more detailed documentation about administered tests. Insurance companies set the rules for reimbursement, and we cannot guarantee that our services will be covered. We are not on any provider plans, and we do not sign any contracts with insurance companies. Many insurance companies will reimburse for an out-of-network provider, but this may be reimbursed at a lower rate. We cannot change anything on the invoice to increase reimbursement (e.g., dates of service, diagnosis or procedure codes). Insurance companies will only reimburse if they view the evaluation as medically necessary, and this is determined in part by the diagnosis. For instance, if a client is diagnosed with a learning disability and there is no other diagnosis, an insurance company may view this as a purely educational issue and not medically necessary. We recommend contacting your insurance company directly to determine if a service is covered. If the child has already had an evaluation at a public school that did not meet their needs, the school may need to pay for an independent second opinion. Educational evaluations are not generally paid for by insurance companies.
If you have any further questions about our billing policies, please e-mail us at info@prattcenter.com.