Insurance

Currently, MPC is a provider for Blue Cross/Blue Shields of South Carolina.

Having insurance can be a wonderful access point for quality medical and mental health care at low cost to the consumer.  However, before assuming that your insurance policy will cover your mental health expenses, there are some things to keep in mind (regardless of your insurance carrier):

For insurance to be used, a client must have a billable diagnosis. A diagnosis is simply a name to identify a cluster of symptoms that are plaguing the client.  It is clinical short-hand, if you will, regarding the client’s experience of the problem.

Sadly, not all plans are the same.  Some plans only consider reimbursement after the client’s out-of-pocket maximum has been reached.  For some, that is an entire year (or more) of medical/mental health expenses before there is any financial relief.  It would be beneficial for a client to find out what the policy actually covers (some only cover expenses such as in-patient hospitalization or expensive psychological testing) and when those benefits begin.

Unfortunately, there are no billable diagnoses for marital and family counseling.  Thus, at least one of the individuals involved would need to have a billable diagnosis for the insurance company to consider reimbursement.  If marital/family counseling is not demonstrated to have an effective evidence for helping an individual with the diagnosis used for billing, this may also affect reimbursement.  

If you have any questions about your specific policy, please contact your insurance agent.