Experiencing Peace Of Mind CT

We want you to be fully informed and know what to expect from our practice even before you decide to establish care with us. Transparent practices and policies allow you to determine if Peace of Mind CT meets your care needs and your budget. It also allows you to spend your full allotted time with your provider on your concerns and treatment plan instead of questions about the practice's policies and procedures. If the information provided on our pages still leaves you with any questions at all, please feel free to contact us.

Your First Appointment

The initial visit is scheduled with the approval of your provider by signing up to the client portal and sending a request. Follow-up visits, you will be able to schedule without approval unless there are circumstances that will require approval first.

Once you schedule your initial visit, you will receive intake forms, assessment tools, and consents to review and sign through your mental wellness portal. These must be completed prior to your appointment, ideally soon enough to allow your provider time to review. Depending on the information you disclose, your provider may send you additional screening tools or consents to fill out.

Documents and forms are files that are shared with your provider. There is no option to decline or alter this function as it is embedded in our practice's electronic health record (EHR).

With signed permission, you may opt-in to receive appointment reminders and notifications for appointment availability, cancellations, and/or last minute openings, if you are on a waiting list.

Opting in for reminders and notifications is strongly advised to avoid missing appointments and incurring the associated fees. Reminders also help you stay compliant with any necessary testing your treatment may require.

For clients subscribed to a plan who wish to self-schedule an appointment outside the time interval your provider recommended, we suggest that you take advantage of your visits covered under your payment plan in any order you wish except the initial visit which is needed to establish care. This means that after the initial visit, you may elect to schedule a 15-minute follow-up and save a 45-minute or a 30-minute appointment for a time that you need to talk more than to go over treatment options or medication adjustments. Your provider will also advise you when to return and how long your next appointment will likely need to be.

It is strongly recommended that you schedule your next visit as soon as possible so that you won't have to wait long for your next session.

Routine Visits and Follow-ups

Before each visit, you will likely be receiving short forms to fill out through your mental wellness portal regarding your responses to treatment, and any questions or concerns you want to address during your upcoming appointment. Completion of forms allows your provider to start your visit knowing what needs to be addressed.

All established clients have access to online self-scheduling through your mental wellness portal. When you are scheduling an "office" visit, consider the time you need. New concerns, need to talk with the possibility for medication adjustments would require at a minimum a 30-minute appointment. Monitoring of medication changes, concerns about side effects, or script refills, a 15-minute appointment should suffice.

We do not set a limit to the visit frequency if they are necessary and/or beneficial, but we will advise you to reduce them if we feel that your symptoms are well-controlled. Although we are not guided by insurance plans, we are guided by clinical guidelines and strong ethics.

Similarly, your provider may feel that you need closer monitoring and more frequent visits than those covered under your subscription plan. Please anticipate the possibility for a minimum of monthly 15-minute "office" visits, weekly or biweekly psychotherapy, depending on the severity of your symptoms. Rates for additional visits are listed on our payment options page (applicable for subscribed clients only).

Home Visits

A home visit is not a regular service our practice offers. Although every effort will be made to meet your need for an in-person session, please be advised that it is a courtesy and it is not guaranteed that you will be seen at home at any point while under our care. If the possibility of a home visit is a determining factor for pursuing services with our practice, we might not be able to meet this expectation.

Home visits may cover a radius of no more than 40 minutes from your provider's location which is in West Hartford. If you would like to be seen in person and have any other house address within this distance, you may indicate it at the time of request for a home visit in your mental wellness portal.

Only one home visit per day might be available. This means that if one home visit has been scheduled on a given day, there will be no time slot for another home visit on that day.

A home visit can be scheduled for 60-minute sessions only.

Home visits cannot be scheduled for psychotherapy-only sessions.

Home visits cannot be self-scheduled.

If you miss your home visit, there will be a fee in addition to our standard cancellation fees and the home visit fee. Please see our policies page.

If inclement weather, your scheduled home visit will be changed to a virtual one, should you wish to keep the appointment, and the home visit fee will be refunded.

If your provider has to cancel your home visit due to an emergency, the home visit fee will be refunded and you will be offered a virtual visit on the same day after business hours or the next day before or after business hours, if there is no available time slot that works for you during business hours.

If there is no availability for a home visit for the date and time you would like to have your initial evaluation, we strongly encourage you to not delay scheduling your first appointment. You can request a 60-minute home visit at any time while under our care.

If your provider arrives at your home and there is evidence that you might not be safe, she will have to take additional steps to ensure your safety (specified under our policies page). Unless you are in crisis, the no-show fees will still apply.

Your Treatment Plan

We can help you only as much as you allow us to. Please inform your provider of all conditions, medications, substances, family or relationship dynamics, negative childhood experiences, habits, hobbies, and thoughts you may have. The one piece of information you may choose to withhold from your provider could explain everything you are experiencing! Please remember that we are here to help you, not to criticize you.

You may need medications that require routine blood work and perhaps electrocardiograms (EKGs) in collaboration with your PCP. We do not charge for time communicating with other providers. However, your other providers may charge you for any communication, in which case we cannot be held responsible for any additional charges you incur.

We strongly encourage you to consider signing a release of information for your other providers to share pertinent medical records with us, if needed, to minimize any communication charges or the need to order blood work or other testing you might have already had through them. The usual disciplines we may need information from are primary care providers, endocrinologists, neurologists, and cardiologists, if involved in your care.

Unfortunately, our services do not include the cost of the medications, lab work, or other diagnostic testing your treatment may require. Your insurance plan should cover prescriptions and diagnostics ordered by a provider who does not accept insurance if sent to a pharmacy or laboratory that accepts your insurance plan. We encourage you to check with your insurance.

We reserve anxiolytics, hypnotics, and stimulants as a last resort unless it is the recommended treatment for your diagnosis. Please expect that we will always attempt to treat first with medications that do not have habit-forming properties.

We cannot accept self-reported diagnoses and treatments without documentation, including the last time your prescriptions were filled at your pharmacy. If you have not taken any psychotropic medications for a month or longer, we will re-evaluate your for the best possible treatment plan while keeping in mind the mental health history you have shared with us.

Patients New to Mental Health

New patients who have never received mental health services before, do not have an established diagnosis, and/or not taking any medications, please be advised:

Not every mental health condition or symptom warrants treatment with medications and your provider will not prescribe you a medication unless she believes you may benefit from it.

Not every symptom you describe and experience means that you have a mental health condition. Your provider will help you understand what you are experiencing and help you develop skills to manage and overcome it.

We usually do not initiate a pharmacologic treatment on the first appointment and we may not initiate any treatment if we feel that your symptoms and their severity can be managed non-pharmacologically. We have your best interest in mind as all medications carry risks and have side effects.

It may take more than one visit to determine your diagnosis accurately.

Establishing a diagnosis does not always mean that pharmacologic treatment is the first step. Psychotherapy is usually the first intervention for certain mood disorders.

Our practice uses HIPAA-compliant AI embedded in our electronic health record as a transcription tool (scribe). As you converse with your provider, the AI "types" what will be the written summary of your visit. The sessions are not recorded or saved for any duration. An AI scribe simplifies our documentation process and allows your provider more time to spend with her clients. Your provider will review each note for accuracy before saving it in your health record. You will be requested to sign an informed consent regarding the use of an AI scribe.

Patients New to Our Practice

Patients with established diagnoses and/or taking medications who are new to our practice, please be advised:

We do not take the diagnoses given by another provider for granted. We do not take your medications prescribed by another provider for granted either. We will advise you if we feel you are inappropriately diagnosed with a condition and we may initiate medication adjustments if the current treatment is inappropriate and/or not effective.

We will encourage you to stop/taper a treatment implemented by a past provider if we believe it is not the right or best option for you. If we feel it is crucial that your treatment is adjusted and you are not open to changes, we would not be able to implement a treatment based on another provider's plan of care and, therefore, we would not be able to continue offering our services.

We will encourage de-prescribing if you are on numerous psychotropic medications and you are not aware that you are taking them or you don't know why they were prescribed.

If you are switching from another practice to ours, we strongly encourage you to sign a release of information so your previous mental health provider can share with us your history and past and current treatments.

Special Considerations

Domestic Violence:

If your partner prevents you from seeking care or if it would be unsafe for you to ask for or get help, we will work with you and your trusted loved ones to create a safe plan for you to get the help you need. Physical and/or mental abuse creates a complex and misunderstood psychological and emotional state that requires and deserves every possible resource to help you find yourself, your peace, and your safety again.

We can help you! Please consider using a trusted friend's or family member's phone to leave us a voicemail or their email address to send us one and please look at our resources page. Once we know you need help, we will make every effort to find a way to reach you and help you.

If you cannot use a trusted loved one's home, cell phone, and/or computer/laptop for a virtual session and meeting your provider in a public place is a safer and feasible option for you, we will make our best effort to make that happen. Meeting you in public will not count as a home visit, and there will not be any additional charges; however, it may require you to drive close to your provider's location (West Hartford). If meeting in public is the only safe option, we will do our best to maintain your confidentiality; however, we cannot guarantee it. You will also be requested to sign a consent form regarding this risk.

If you experience financial abuse and cannot subscribe to one of our payment plans or pay per session, please contact us directly or through a family member or friend to explore options for safely receiving the help and support you need.

We are aware that you might be isolated and have no family or friends. Please see our resources page for physical locations of shelters and/or battered women centers. If their services do not cover your needs, please consider visiting one of these centers and requesting assistance to communicate with us, such as using their phone or email.

When in crisis, not only can your life be in danger, but you are experiencing emotional pain that words cannot describe. It is a time when you need all hands on deck and then some! In the current world of healthcare, being in such pain costs. The more help you need, the higher the price and your bill get. At Peace of Mind CT, if we are available to answer your call during our business hours, we either have time or will make time to help you. When you are in danger, time is not money. It is safety. Although we bill for crisis management, we address it as another appointment and bill a reasonable fixed amount, no matter how much time you need until you feel better or until emergency services arrive to your location. We strongly believe that helping and caring during difficult times should not have to come with a high price tag.

When your provider has to help an individual in crisis, she may have to cancel your appointment and will notify you through the portal or via text that your appointment must be cancelled due to an emergency.

Depending on the time the individual requires until they are safe and the length of the upcoming appointments, up to four consecutive sessions can potentially be cancelled. For all sessions cancelled on a given day by the provider, we will offer to reschedule them for the same day, after business hours, or for the next day before or after business hours if there is no time slot available during regular business hours that works for you.

We will do our best to ensure our clients do not go on a waiting list when we are responsible for a missed appointment.

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