Psychological Assessment & Evaluations

Overview

Psychological assessment is an important tool for diagnosing and gaining awareness.  Perspectives offers assessments in two contexts.

Perspectives clinicians are trained in the area of therapeutic assessment.  Clinicians often use brief assessments to aid in a correct diagnosis, which then helps to inform the treatment plan.  For example, measures can be used to help assess depression, anxiety or behavioral issues.  These same baseline assessment measures can then be periodically given throughout treatment to monitor progress.

Perspectives clinicians are trained to conduct psychological evaluations, which target a specific problematic area (e.g., learning problems, inattention and hyperactivity, emotion dysregulation).  The results of the assessment are used to provide recommendations.  Perspectives offers the following types of psychological evaluations:

• ADHD
• Adult autism
• Learning disability
• Cognitive
• Bariatric
• Fitness for duty
• Pre-employment screenings
• Social Security Disability
• Guardianship
• General (used to evaluate overall emotional and behavioral functioning and identify or differentiate diagnoses for treatment purposes)

What to expect

When you call the office, staff obtain demographic information, insurance type and plan, and reason for the evaluation.  We then call your insurance company and obtain an estimate of the cost.  Then, if you would like to proceed with the evaluation, we schedule you with one of our psychologists.

Psychological evaluations usually consist of one to three appointments.

• At the first appointment, you meet with the psychologist, who gathers information about the presenting concern and asks questions about your functioning across multiple areas of your life – family, friendships, employment, medical, etc. Following the interview, you and sometimes others (spouse, parents, teachers) are given behavioral rating scales to complete to help the psychologist gather more information about you from multiple perspectives.  Depending on the reason for the evaluation, you may also be given other assessment measures.  The initial appointment usually lasts 1 to 3 hours.
• If additional tests are needed to complete the evaluation, you may be asked to return for a second appointment, which usually lasts 1 to 3 hours.
• Once all the information is obtained, the psychologist writes the report, the insurance company is billed, and a final session is scheduled with the psychologist.
• The last appointment is used to provide you with feedback on the assessment results. The psychologist will go over your test scores, tell you what they mean, and review any diagnoses and recommendations.  This is also your time to ask questions and clarify any information.
• Following the feedback session, you will be given a copy of your evaluation report. You can also sign release of information forms so that we can send copies of your report to any relevant providers (e.g., primary care provider).
• The entire assessment process, from the date of the first appointment to the feedback session, takes approximately 4 weeks to complete.

Billing & Payment

We are able to bill many insurance companies for your psychological evaluation.  Your plan determines how much of the cost of the evaluation you are responsible for.  Additionally, we offer cash options.  The cost of the evaluation varies based on the type of the evaluation.  Payment is due the day of the feedback session, prior to receiving feedback and the evaluation report.

We are networked with the following insurance companies:

• Aetna & Aetna Medicare
• ASR Health Benefits
• Blue Cross Blue Shield & BCBS Medicare Advantage
• Blue Care Network (*in process*)
• First Health/Cofinity
• Medicare
• Meritain
• Priority Health PPO & Priority Health Medicare
• Tri-Care

We are able to bill most other insurances as an out-of-network provider.

Unfortunately, we are unable to accept the following insurances at this time:

• Any HMO
• Medicaid

If you have additional questions or are interested in scheduling a psychological evaluation, please call the office at 989-486-3021.