Every practice has policies in place to protect the time and commitments of their therapists and clients. Here's some information about our own procedures and how it applies to you.

Full transparency: late cancellations and missed sessions are a pain for everyone. On the client side, you may be frustrated and embarrassed for scheduling mistakes. On the therapist side, we tend to worry when clients suddenly cancel, or miss appointments unexpectedly and do not contact the office.  On the business side, your therapist loses income they depend on as a provider in the fee-for-service industry.

Unfortunately, when an appointment is missed, especially with less than 24-hours notice, the therapist is unable to fill that appointment time. Grapevine Psychology requests that appointments are cancelled at least 24-hours in advance for many reasons:

-- Appointment times are reserved for you, which prohibits others from scheduling during that time.  A missed appointment means that someone else desiring an appointment was unable to schedule.

-- The sooner you cancel an appointment, the greater chance someone else is able to schedule during that time.

-- Sometimes therapy can be difficult, and you may want to avoid going to your appointment, even though you still want to meet your goals.  The late cancellation fee is a strategy to hold you accountable to your goals, even when it gets hard.

--- If this happens, talk to your therapist at the start of your appointment about not wanting to come that day so you can find strategies to continue attending your appointments and helping you reach your goals.

-- Learning when to cancel appointments to take care of yourself is a common struggle for individuals pursuing therapy.

         --- Most of us know most of the time when we are “coming down with something.”  Missed appointment fees can often help you maintain connection to your physical wellbeing, self-prioritization, and self-advocacy.

-- Your financial responsibility for missed appointments reflects your respect for your therapist’s time and your own wellbeing.--- It also “holds your spot,” or maintains your reserved appointment time

.-- Grapevine Psychology is unable to bill your insurance for missed sessions, and missed appointments negatively impact the therapist’s financial wellbeing.

-- Appointment reminders are a professional courtesy, and not intended to be a primary means of maintaining attendance.  Missed appointments due not receiving appointment reminders for whatever reason(s) are subject to the late cancellation and no-show fees, as discussed here.

--- This policy is a standard in healthcare practice, and serves to maintain reservations for future appointments.

Grapevine Psychology understands that illnesses and unexpected events happen.  The missed session fees are standardly applied across all missed appointments; unique or unusual situations will be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.  

To avoid continued missed session fees, your therapist may discuss the current scheduling frequency; if relevant, strategies for improving management of your life roles; request documentation; and explore readiness or helpfulness of therapy in your life at this time. You are strongly discouraged to attend a session when feeling ill in any way; your therapist reserves the right to send you home if you are clearly unwell.  This is to protect you, the therapist, and all those who work in the same building.

Attending a session when ill will likely disrupt the therapeutic experience, worsen your symptoms and the duration of your illness, and cause unnecessary exposure of your illness to your therapist and other clients. If you need to cancel your appointment with less than 24-hours notice, contact your therapist, or email Grapevine Psychology at Admin@GrapevinePsych.com or call the office at (817) 329-5041.

If you cancel an appointment with less than 24-hours notice, Grapevine Psychology’s policy is to bill $60 to the card in your file.

If you miss an appointment without any notification (a.k.a., no-show), the full amount of the session is billed to the card in your file as listed in your Financial Agreement ($185). These fees are not billable to insurance, and are billed to the card in your secure client portal.