By the time winter break rolls around, many teens are exhausted from final exams and after-school activities. With fewer hours of sunlight each day and less time outside, those with depression and seasonal affective disorder (SAD) are likely to notice more symptoms during colder months. We talk with concerned parents every year around this time who want to know if they can plan their teen’s treatment while they’re home from school.
There’s actually a financial incentive to planning your teen’s mental health treatment at the end of the year. Most insurance providers are required to cover intensive treatments like Teen Partial Hospitalization Programs (PHPs) and Teen Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOPs). After your teen meets their deductible, the amount you pay for these services may drop significantly.
In this blog post, we’ll talk about how to save on your teen’s treatment costs for more affordable mental health care at the end of the year.
How can I find affordable mental health care for my teen over the holidays?
The rate you’ll pay for your teen’s mental health treatment depends on how your insurance plan works. If your teen has an annual deductible, the amount that you’ve already spent on certain health care expenses will also be a factor. You can save the most on your teen’s treatments at the end of the year by planning their full course of treatment before their deductible resets. You’ll also need to find a treatment center that accepts your insurance and find out what their weekly rate is for the treatments your teen will need.
Understand how your teen’s insurance coverage works for mental health treatments
Your insurance carrier should provide you with a breakdown that explains how your plan works for different types of treatment. Certain types of care that can be considered preventive, like outpatient therapy and medications, may be covered at the same rate all year. More intensive forms of treatment like PHP and IOP are more likely to change based on your child’s status with their deductible.
Some insurance plans may require you to pay the same copay rate for teen mental health treatments at any time of the year. Others will require you to pay different amounts of coinsurance depending on whether your teen has met their deductible. The deductible is the amount of money you pay before your insurance company starts paying for certain covered expenses. For example, you might pay 70% coinsurance until your teen’s deductible of $6,000 is met and then pay 30% coinsurance for any treatments after that point.
Gather the information you’ll need to make care decisions with your teen
The first step is to understand what levels of treatment your teen may need and how your plan covers those services. Then you’ll need to find out how close your teen is to meeting their deductible, if they have one. Once you have that information from your insurance company, you can look for clinics that accept your insurance. At Lightfully, we accept most major insurance carriers. To estimate your teen’s total cost of treatment, you can ask the clinic for their weekly rate at each level of treatment. This will give you a ballpark range so you can plan how you’ll finance their care. In the next step, we’ll take a more specific look at the cost of your teen’s individual treatment plan.
Create your teen’s plan for affordable mental health care
At this point, you can start narrowing down what the actual cost of your teen’s treatment will be. Schedule an assessment to start the conversation with your child’s prospective treatment team. After their assessment, you’ll receive recommendations with an estimate of how many weeks your teen will spend in each level of treatment.
At Lightfully, our Precision Care Model is the system we use to create personalized treatment plans for each teen we serve. We’ll combine a selection of evidence-based treatment modalities to suit your child’s personality and their life. Instead of taking an approach driven by diagnoses and symptom reduction, we focus on building protective factors to support long-term mental well-being. Our clients and their families play a key role in this process as we prioritize their treatment goals and consider them a part of their treatment team.
Explore affordable mental health treatments for your teen at Lightfully
There are a lot of factors to consider when seeking mental health treatment for your child. This time of the year, the timing and changes in your insurance plan can make a big difference. We try to make the financial aspect of planning your teen’s treatment experience as simple and smooth as possible. Our Admissions Concierge Team will be happy to answer any questions and help you find the information you need.
At this time of year, we offer a Short-Term Option for Lightfully Teen programs. It can be helpful for teens who are trying higher levels of treatment for the first time and those who need a quick reset during their winter break. Contact us to find out when the Short-Term Option will be available this year.
Your finances play an important role in your teen’s treatment planning process, but they’re not the only thing. Our goal at Lightfully is to make sure you have everything you need to support your teen through this time.
