Licensed to practice in Virginia and accepts 47 insurances. Specializes in Trauma and PTSD and 1 more.
I am an AK amputee, a person with a disability, a disabled person, a one-legged person, or as medical folks will say a person with a "residual limb" (I have never heard an amputee call their stump a residual limb). If you have been looking for a therapist and you see the photo they choose to put on their page, how many put their disability in their photo? That choice says something. I am also a psychotherapist with 50 years experience of providing therapy to adolescents, adults, and families. My identity shifted 10 years ago when my right leg was amputated above the knee (AK). The identity as a disabled person is not a sought after identity. In many ways being disabled sucks big time. Providing telehealth services would be one way for me to "hide" my disability. Just never point the camera toward my leg. I don't like my experience of me just walking into a room and my leg has already introduced me long before I say my name. I am looking for clients that are disabled in some way and want to work on not letting that "disability label " suck your lifeblood away.
Your health insurance company has many rules that require me to assess and document your need for mental health services. The Virginia Board of Social Work (this is the board that oversees my license) has regulations about documentation. Any tele-mental-health platform also has many requirements, So, a good bit of our first session will be me asking many questions that will help me check off all the boxes and lines on the chart in order for the session to be be paid for by your insurance company. For many years research has demonstrated that the quality of the relationship between the client and the provider is the most predictive factor of good outcomes So you will be evaluation me in terms of thing like "Do I think I can trust this person? Does this guy want to hear what I need help with or is he just checking off boxes? We both will be using this first session to "checkout" the other person
The biggest strength I bring to my work with you is that I did not learn about being disabled from a book. My knowledge comes from my "lived experience" and demonstration of my capacity to display resilience. I have experienced 43 hospitalizations since the year 2000. About half were major surgeries. One day a friend of mine told me that many people are inspired by the choices I made. I (jokingly) said to him “I did not know it was a multiple-choice test. What were the other options?” I bring a kind of determination to my work with clients that is a powerful presence pulling toward health. From a psychodynamic theory base, it would be called “lending my ego strengths” to clients. We each must walk through our life experience with our own energy, but we can be accepting of a caring presence walking beside us.
Cash - $125 per session
Aetna
Aetna - Allied Benefits
Aetna - ASR Health Benefits
Aetna - Luminare
Aetna - Medicare
Aetna - Moda
Aetna - WebTPA
Aetna – HealthEZ
All Savers
Amerihealth Administrators
Amerihealth NJ Medicare Advantage
Anthem
Arlo
AvMed
Blue Cross Blue Shield
Centivo
Cigna
Cigna - HealthEZ
EAP:Cigna
EAP:Evernorth
EAP:UnitedHealthcare/Optum
Evernorth
Golden Rule
GTEB
Harvard Pilgrim/UnitedHealthcare
Humana - Medicare
Humana Dual (Medicare & Medicaid)
Independence Administrators
Independence Blue Cross
Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente - Medicaid
Kaiser Permanente - Medicare
Optum
OptumHealth Complex Medical Conditions
Oscar
Oxford
Surest (formerly Bind)
Tufts Health/Cigna
United Medical Resources
UnitedHealthcare Complete Care (C-SNP)
UnitedHealthcare Dual (Medicare & Medicaid)
UnitedHealthcare Life Insurance
UnitedHealthcare Shared Services
UnitedHealthcare StudentResources
UnitedHealthcare/Optum
UnitedHealthcare/Optum - Medicaid
UnitedHealthcare/Optum - Medicare
I have training in several different treatment methods. When making an assessment of a clients presenting problem I select parts of different methods that i think match the client's needs.