Our Policies and Procedures
We would like to take a moment to thank everyone for your patience during the pandemic as we are getting use to our “new” normal. All mental health agencies currently are receiving a high rate of referrals and the demand is high, so we thank you for your patience, generosity and understanding during this time as we are here to help each other. Please note due to this high demand information below is subject to change.
*Our Testing Protocol—We schedule Psychological Test appointments as they come in on a 2-4 month period (after the assessment is complete and/or after your insurance provider authorize your Test if applicable) and we do it on a first come/first serve basis. Once your name comes up in the que to test, we will contact you with a test date and time. After receiving the findings in your portal and if you need someone to go over the results with you, please contact our office at 910-514-9977 so we can set up an appointment with our LPA that information will also be find in your portal.
*We are currently offering Psychological Testing services for ages 6 and up to include but not limited to Intelligence, Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and Learning Disabilities. Self-pay and those that currently have Medicaid—(Healthy Blue, Amerihealth, United Health Care, Carolina Complete, and Wellcare). We will be added more insurance panels and more Psychological Testing soon!
*We are currently offering Medication Management for individuals 6 and older. Please contact our practice to see what insurances we accept for Medication Management.
*Our Referral Protocol—Our practice will contact all potential consumers via phone within 1-10 business days (excluding Fridays because our Administrative Office is closed on Fridays, major holidays, and holiday breaks) after receiving your referral to inform you if you are eligible for services or not eligible after speaking with your insurance provider. This timeframe may be longer if the insurance provider has additional questions, the insurance provider system is down, the information on the referral form is incorrect or ineligible, etc. If you do not receive a call during this timeframe from our office, your referral was not received by our practice. If we do not accept your insurance, if the potential consumer is younger than 6 years old (excluding testing), or if we cannot provide the service based on your specific requirements; we will contact your Referral Source directly so they can refer you to another practice and you won’t be contacted by our practice.
When the Electronic Intake Packet is complete and submitted to our practice, someone will be contacting you within 1-7 business days to set up your assessment appointment.
Copay is subject to change based on insurance provider updates. Consumers will be contacted by our practice in reference to the change and will be asked how you want to proceed.
To request a copy of your records or a consumers records, please contact our Operations Manager at 910-514-9977 for the fees associated with this request. After fees are paid, please allow 4-6 weeks for records to be sent.
We cannot send any third party (even your referral source) any of your documents, evaluations, notes, results, etc. unless you fully complete our Authorization Form by providing the name(s), indicating on the form what document(s) you giving us permission to send to them, and your signature must be on the form. NO EXCEPTIONS!!
New consumers can't schedule an appointment using our portal on our website. You must contact our office directly at 910-514-9977 because we must check to see if you are eligible for services by verifying your insurance and you must also complete our Intake Packet before you can schedule an appointment with our practice.
All potential consumers must provide us the front and back of their insurance card along with their Picture ID or the parent/guardian Picture ID before the potential consumer can be seen. Send documents to contact@newdirectionyfs.org.
Cancellation Policy
A cancelled appointment hurts three people: you, your therapist, and another client who could have potentially used your time slot. Therapy sessions are scheduled in advance and are a time reserved exclusively for our clients.
When a session is cancelled without adequate notice, we are unable to fill this time slot by offering it to another current client, a client on the wait list, or a client with a clinical emergency. In addition, we are unable to bill your insurance company for sessions that are not kept.
Without a cancellation fee policy in place, your therapist will lose money or the opportunity to schedule another client if you late cancel or do not show up.
Our cancellation policy is this: Clients can cancel or reschedule an appointment anytime, if they provide 24 hours’ notice. If you cancel an appointment with less than 24 hours’ notice, or fail to show up, you will be charged a $100 fee for the appointment. This fee MUST be paid before another appointment can be scheduled.
Some practices have a 48-hour policy. Some even have a 72-hour policy. Ours is 24 hours, and we are firm at 24 hours, for weekday appointments and 48 hours for weekend appointments.
Our cancellation policy is not a penalty or a punishment. Most clients understand this. Very rarely, there will be a client who will feel that he or she is being punished when they are charged a late cancellation fee. We want to make sure that you don’t feel this way, if someday you miss an appointment.
It is likely, if you are in counseling long enough, at some point you might forget about an appointment, or something will come up in your schedule that will result in you missing an appointment. Maybe you’ll need to work late. Maybe you’ll get a sudden onset of the flu. Maybe your kids will have doctor appointments, or your car will break down, or something unavoidable will come up.
We are not upset with clients when they miss an appointment. We know that’s life. In return, our clients understand that scheduling an appointment with one of us is like buying tickets to an event. If you miss the event, it doesn’t matter why you missed it, or even if it was your first time, you can’t turn in your tickets for a refund.
A fee of $100 will be charged when you miss or cancel an appointment without giving 24 hours advanced notice. If you call within the 24 hours and you are unable to reschedule with any available therapist you will still be responsible for the $100 cancellation fee.
This means that if an appointment is scheduled for 3:00 pm on a Tuesday, notice must be given by 3:00 pm on Monday at the latest. *For Saturday or Sunday appointments, 48-hour notice is required.
You can cancel your appointment by calling, texting, or emailing your specific therapist or by contacting the Admin Team at 910-514-9977 or contact@newdirectionyfs.org. If you are more than 10 minutes late to your appointment time, it will be treated like a late cancellation. It’s important to remember that insurance will not pay for missed appointments, so you will be responsible for the full $100 fee, not just a co-pay.
The only time we will waive this fee is in the event of an immediate family member's death, serious or contagious illness (documentation required from a Medical Facility/Provider) or extreme weather conditions for in person appointments.
Please understand that therapy should be viewed as any other important medical appointment would be viewed. This cancellation policy is important for our counseling practice because while a medical doctor can see 35 patients in a day, a therapist generally sees a maximum of 6 to 8 clients a day.
We reserve for you 45-60 minutes of our time for the session and clinical notes. If a client cancels with less than a full 24-hour notice it is unlikely that we will be able to fill that time slot, and we lose an entire hour from our work schedule.
While it is a time commitment, this is for your personal growth and consistency is key in order to achieve this.
-If you are a weekly client and you miss three scheduled appointments within a three-month time period, the therapeutic relationship may be terminated and appropriate referrals to other practices will be offered.
-If you are a bi-weekly client and you miss two scheduled appointments in a two-month period, the therapeutic relationship may be terminated and appropriate referrals to other practices will be offered.
It is ALWAYS our goal to attempt and reschedule ALL appointments during the same week when possible. If you do not cancel within the 24 hour window but we are able to reschedule the appointment during the same week with your Therapist or another available Therapist, then you will NOT be charged the cancellation fee. The fee is not associated with consumers receiving Medicaid but these clients still need to follow the protocol of how to cancel an appointment based on this cancellation policy.
Clients who are unsure if they can commit to therapy appointments scheduled for them should seek services elsewhere.
Self pay clients, clients with a co-pay, or clients with a deductible will be sent an invoice prior to all their appointments. Clients are expected to make payment by the date and time listed on the invoice. Failure to pay by the deadline will result in a $5.00 late assessment fee.
All consumers or their parents/guardians are responsible for providing our practice the front and back of the consumer’s insurance card and Picture ID to be placed in consumer’s file. Not providing these documents will be a delay in services or services may be stopped until the consumer provides these documents to the practice. Our practice will not be contacting the insurance company to receive the insurance card(s).
All other policies and procedures are placed in New Direction YFS’s Intake Packet