Coordination of Care

Having set times to update parents

For minors, working with you as the parents provides the best chances of sustained progress.  Ideally, a check in, even a few minutes at the beginning and end of a session, is suggested weekly and, at a minimum, monthly.  For parents not available during the main counseling time, please coordinate a time to check in with your child’s therapist.  You know your child the best and can inform his\her therapist of progress, what has been most\least effective, and are integral to continue to inform treatment beyond the first meeting.  Treatment plans are reviewed every 90 days and your feedback is critical.  Confidentially will still be maintained and B2AW asks you to respect that not everything shared by your child can be shared with you.  

Providing a Confidential Space Time outside of sessions

Any time outside of sessions over 5 minutes will be charged a Coordination of Care fee ($25 for each 15 minutes). This is used to coordinate care with parents, your doctors, for any paperwork requested by your doctors, other providers, attorneys, courts, school teams, etc.  We wish we did not have charge you for time to coordinate care but as a practice that is known for “going above and beyond” with the various entities that support you and your family, the policy has to be enforced.

This policy also applies to extra sessions to coordinate care with parents after an appointment with the doctor, psychiatrist, school team, etc.  For example, therapist meets with your child at school or in a regular appointment and can bill the main appointment via insurance.  Parent and therapist talk after these appointments to outline next steps. This often is billed as a separate appointment and may not be covered by insurance, especially if it is the same date of service. 

B2AW will go to extremes to track down medical providers including the time to create and fax treatment summaries with your Release of Information. Rather than submit multiple bills, a summary of the attempts plus the actual consult wll be charged on the date the consult occurs.  A common example is provided below with this info appearing on your invoice:   
5 attempts to reach provider (10 mins)  + Fax summary (5 mins)  +  Consult (10 mins) = $25 charge 

A coordination of care fee is not assessed for brief calls to change or update appointments; however, a charge does occur to review care and update treatment plans outside of regular appointment times.  If you are ever unsure if time spent on the phone or in person will be billed via insurance or private, please ask early in the conversation with your therapist who can clarify.  

Confidentiality cannot be guaranteed with parent updates sent via email. While the input is greatly needed and appreciated, your therapist may only respond with a simple “thank you” to minimize the risk. 

Transmission of contagious illness

Well we continue to learn to adapt in this COVID era, we ask for your understanding for last minute appointment changes.  Please inform your therapist as soon as possible if you have come in contact with anyone or with anything that could be contagious.  Out of respect for all the families we come in contact with each week and those of us caring for the elderly or with a compromised Immunity, please inform your therapist ASAP of any potential contact with someone with COVID or another contagious illness even after your appointment has finished. You will not be charged the $50 late cancellation fee for canceling an appointment due to a desire to protect others.  Please check the CDC and our doctor for the latest guidelines.  Thank you.

Connectivity

B2AW strives to offer several HIPAA-compliant options to connect.  Your primary method will be provided through a login link typically texted to you 2 days prior from B2AW via Simple Practice.If you ever receive any appointment requests or updates from Headway or B2AW’s Google calendar, please ignore them as they are merely back up login options or could be a former meeting time. Occasionally, Simple Practice’s bandwidth is not as strong as we would like or your WiFi location prefers another option.  We will log in via Simple Practice first and agree to switch to any of the following backup options with a link provided in the Simple Practice chat and\or emailed to you from kmetzler@b2awellness.com:  Google Meet, possibly from Headway, PsychToday or any other number of HIPAA- compliant options to ensure we have a way to connect.  Each client has their own custom and private Google Meet back up log in option just in case.