Module 5 · Money and the first contact

The fees page: publish the number, then explain it

Money is the question almost everyone arrives with and almost nobody wants to ask out loud. By the end of this lesson your site will answer it: a fees page with your number, superbills and insurance in plain words, the five questions to ask an insurer, your sliding-scale policy, and the Good Faith Estimate notice as real page text. You’ll also have a “what to expect” page and a hidden “I’m full” page ready for the day you need it.

Publish the number

Start with an honest admission, because a clinician audience deserves one: there is no study showing what happens to inquiries when a therapist publishes a fee or hides it. Nobody has run that test. Every consultant who writes about it is working from experience, and the ones who publish lean toward posting the number.

What does exist is evidence that money is already a barrier before anyone reaches your site. In SAMHSA’s 2024 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 65.2% of adults with a mental illness who felt they needed treatment and didn’t get it said they thought it would cost too much. People could give more than one reason, and this is a national survey, not a study of website visitors. Still, the direction is clear. Hiding your fee doesn’t remove that worry; it moves the disappointment to a phone call, after the person has already said something hard out loud.

The recommendation: publish your fee. If you truly can’t, publish a range and your insurance situation. It’s a judgment call, and it’s yours, but that’s the direction this course points. Whatever you publish has to stay true, so the day your fee changes, the page changes too.

The number, then how it works, then one phone call

A bare number raises the next question: “will my insurance pay any of that?” So the fee is followed straight away by how payment works, in plain words, and then by one thing the reader can do today. For an out-of-network practice, that looks like this:

Notice what that ledger does not have: a percentage. Many plans pay some of it back, but the amount depends on each person’s plan, deductible and what the insurer decides to allow. You can’t know it, so the page never states or implies one. Instead it hands the reader a script. These five questions go on your fees page, for the reader to ask by calling the member-services number on the back of their insurance card:

• Do I have out-of-network benefits for outpatient mental health care?
• What is my out-of-network deductible, and how much of it have I met this year?
• After the deductible, what percentage of the “allowed amount” do you reimburse?
• Do I need approval in advance (pre-authorization) before I start?
• How do I submit a claim, and is there a deadline?

Those five questions turn a frightening unknown into a call someone can make on their lunch break. That’s the most useful thing a fees page can do.

Tell them what the insurer will see

Here’s the part almost no therapy website says. Using insurance, in network or out, means giving the insurer a diagnosis code, and a superbill carries one too. It also opens the door for the plan to ask about the care. Some people pay privately for exactly that reason. Saying so on your fees page, in one calm sentence, is one of the most trust-building things you can write, because it’s plainly in the reader’s interest and not in yours.

If you’re in network

The kit calls this page /insurance-and-fees instead of /fees. Three things matter:

• Insurer names in real text, not a strip of logos. A logo image can’t be read by a screen reader or a search engine. Write both forms people search for, such as “BCBS” and “Blue Cross Blue Shield.”
• Only the panels you’re on today. A plan you left last year, still listed, is a false statement about your practice. Put a date on your calendar to check the list.
• Your self-pay rate as well. Some insured people will choose to pay privately.

A sliding scale is a policy, not a negotiation

If you offer reduced fees, the page should describe a policy, not open a conversation. A fixed number of reduced-fee spots, a stated way of deciding who gets one, how to ask, and when you review it. When the structure decides, there’s no moment left in which anyone has to haggle, and you apply it the same way for everyone.

How many spots is your call. One private-practice consultant who writes about this keeps a small fixed number for her own practice and says plainly that her number isn’t a rule for anyone else. The financial therapist Lindsay Bryan-Podvin adds a test worth taking seriously: if a sliding scale would strain your relationship with the clients paying it, don’t offer one. A fee arrangement you resent becomes a clinical problem, not just a business one. And it’s fine to have no sliding scale at all.

The Good Faith Estimate notice

A Good Faith Estimate is a written estimate of what care will cost, for clients who pay you directly. That includes people who have insurance but choose not to use it for your sessions, which is the part many clinicians miss. Your fees page carries a notice telling people they can get one.

You don’t write that notice. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) publishes a model notice, and you paste its text onto the page exactly as CMS wrote it. Its opening line is:

Two build details matter as much as the words:

• Real page text, not a PDF. The notice should be ordinary text on the page, the kind a search engine can read, not a download and not something hidden behind a button.
• Nobody rewords it, including Claude. AI tools love to make official text “friendlier.” This is the one place on the page where friendlier is wrong.

What goes on the page, in order

Build the fees page

Let's finish my fees page. Follow the web-architecture skill for what goes on it, the
frontend-design skill to build it, and the copywriting and compliance-check skills for the
words. No client information is needed for this, so don't ask for any.

My details:
- Fee: $[FEE] for a [LENGTH]-minute session.
- Insurance: I am [out of network / in network with: FULL PLAN NAMES].
- Sliding scale: [my policy — number of spots, how to ask, when I review it / none].
- Cancellation policy: [MY POLICY or "link to /policies"].

Build the page in this order: fee; insurance or out-of-network and superbills in plain words;
the five questions to ask an insurer, as a list; one honest sentence on what the insurer sees
when insurance is used; the sliding-scale policy (or leave it out); the Good Faith Estimate
notice; the cancellation policy.

For the Good Faith Estimate notice, use the CMS model notice text exactly as I paste it below,
as ordinary page text — not a PDF, not an accordion, not a summary. Do not change a word:

[PASTE THE CMS MODEL NOTICE TEXT HERE]

Do not write "as low as", "and up", "affordable", any reimbursement percentage, or anything that
says or implies how much a client will get back. When you're done, list anything still in
[brackets].

What to check: open the page in the preview and read it top to bottom. Your fee is a number. The five questions are there as a list. There is no percentage anywhere. Then compare the Good Faith Estimate section with CMS’s text word by word; if even one word differs, paste it again and say “verbatim.” Finally, read it as someone who’s nervous about money. Does it tell them what they’ll pay and what to do next?

The “what to expect” page

The unknown step is its own barrier. This page takes the mystery out of it: what the free call covers and how long it is, what paperwork comes before the first session, what a first session is like, how online sessions work if you offer them, what someone can ask for (a different clinician, a referral, a Good Faith Estimate), and how to pause or stop. People often don’t know how long therapy usually takes, so if you can describe how it tends to go in your practice, as a range and a conversation rather than a promise, include it.

The line to hold: describe the process, never the outcome. “In the first session we’ll talk about what brought you here and what you’d like to be different” is a description. “You’ll leave feeling lighter” is a promise you can’t make.

Build /what-to-expect using the web-architecture and copywriting skills. No client information
is needed, so don't ask for any.

- The free call: [LENGTH] minutes, [phone / video], what it covers, and that it is not therapy.
- Before the first session: [what paperwork, and roughly how long it takes].
- The first session: describe what we do, in process words only.
- Online sessions: [how they work / I don't offer them].
- What anyone can ask for: a different clinician, a referral, a Good Faith Estimate.
- How to pause or stop.
- How long therapy tends to take in my practice: [a range in my own words / leave this out].

Describe the process only. Nothing about what the client will feel, achieve or overcome.

What to check: hunt for outcome words (“feel”, “heal”, “overcome”, “transform”) and rewrite any sentence that promises a result. Check that every detail, from the call length to the paperwork, is true of your practice today.

The “I’m full” page, built before you need it

Being full is normal, not an edge case, and a directory’s on/off switch handles it badly. Your website doesn’t have to. The kit builds a hidden page at /im-full: not in the menu, not in the sitemap (the list of pages you hand search engines), and marked so search engines skip it. On the day your caseload fills, you link to it from your availability line instead of taking the contact page down.

• The crisis block first, above everything else.
• A plain statement that you’re not taking new clients, and when that might change, if you know.
• How to search a therapist directory themselves.
• Low-cost routes and the county behavioral health authority.
• Two or three colleagues you actually know and have confirmed are licensed, described by what they do, never endorsed for results. Or none.
• A line saying the visitor should confirm fit and license themselves.

Build the hidden /im-full page from the web-architecture skill. It must not appear in the menu
or the sitemap, and it must be marked no-index. Put the crisis block first. Then:
- Status: "I'm not taking new clients right now." [Add when that may change, or leave it out.]
- How to search a therapist directory.
- Low-cost options and the county behavioral health authority for [COUNTY, STATE] — mark each
  one [VERIFY] so I check it before this page is ever linked.
- Colleagues: [NAME, LICENSE, what they do — only people I know and have confirmed are licensed /
  none].
- A closing line that this list is information, not a recommendation, and that people should
  confirm fit and license themselves.

What to check: type /im-full after your preview address and confirm the page loads; then confirm it isn’t reachable from your menu or footer. Clear every [VERIFY] yourself before the page is ever linked, and make sure no colleague’s description promises anything.

Watch this step

The Good Faith Estimate explained by health lawyers in under two minutes; it does not mention the website notice, and the firm sells compliance help. Then sliding scale as a policy rather than a favor. The third video is optional: a client-facing superbill explainer. Its numbers are one plan's example, which is why your fees page says "possible reimbursement" and sends people to their insurer. It’s from an independent creator — credited below, so go give them a follow.

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3:34

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