Frequently Asked Questions for Prospective Families
At ClearView, we pull from our dynamic and diverse team of psychologists to ensure the best fit with our clients, both in terms of specialization and experience. Although you will work with a lead psychologist, they will case consult and peer-review with our entire team of psychologists. We are dynamic by design and are clinical, forensic, counseling, and neuropsychologists. Our model ensures not only the right fit, but that many eyes, from differing perspectives, are considered in our conceptualization. In this regard, we strive to ensure that our clients receive the greatest degree of due diligence, consideration, and care possible.
Each of our lead psychologists conducts assessments full-time, and although we often work with clients in the community, we specialize in clients who are enrolled in, or who may be bound for, therapeutic boarding schools and residential treatment centers.
We spend a significant amount of time with our families and clients, as compared to the standards of our profession. Many of our competitors conduct three to five assessments per week, whereas we conduct three to five assessments per month. Our psychologists often spend as much as forty hours on each case. We also spend more time with the parents of our clients than many assessment psychologists, with a commitment to not just providing a strong report, but ensuring that it is understood and able to be a ‘vehicle’ that supports our clients and their families as they move forward in treatment and life. We could write the greatest report ever written, but in the end, the report is only as valuable as it is understood and successfully implemented. We work carefully with our clients, families, and the clinical professionals supporting them to ensure this is the case.
We have worked very hard over the years to develop a strong reputation; based on providing services well beyond the standard of care and with integrity and honesty. We trust that any recommendations or referrals to our team reflect the trust and confidence we have earned over the years, and after over two thousand successful cases. ClearView has absolutely no financial relationship with any referring mental health professional or program. Any solicitation of exchange of favor or fee is promptly refused, and the relationship with the referent is kindly terminated.
Families use their child’s assessment for several purposes. First and foremost, we want the assessment to serve as a common understanding of your child’s strengths and weaknesses (i.e., what comes easily/naturally for your child and what is difficult for them). Our assessments are used by your child’s current and/or future treatment team to guide therapeutic planning (and often their medication if needed). By clarifying diagnoses, we provide specific recommendations, informed by evidence-based therapeutic approaches, areas of therapeutic emphasis, academic recommendations (if applicable), and others that support your family’s future success. We also want your child to understand the assessment results. The clinical professionals we work with are familiar with ClearView’s work and able to discuss our findings with your child and how the findings apply to their current work together. Additionally, we will offer to speak with your child directly about the results if they are of an appropriate age and open to learning more about the findings.
Assessment data is most often considered reliable for two years or so, but there are many reasons fundamental performance changes and/or variability, especially in adolescence. We would be happy to review your child’s past assessment and address this more specifically as it applies to your consultation call with our director. However, in our review of thousands of past assessments, we often find that they are lacking in the sophistication of instruments used, in their accounting of developmental concerns, and in the summary of the findings that help you understand your child’s strengths/weaknesses and how their concerns have emerged. One of the biggest compliments we receive from our families is that we “get” their child and have captured the family’s experience of their child over time.
This is one of the biggest concerns for prospective families, and we certainly appreciate that you want valid results if you are investing in an assessment for your child. There are a few ways we account for this. First, we involve parents/guardians heavily in the assessment process. This allows us to ask you specifically about information we gather from your child. Second, our psychologists all have doctoral degrees and are highly trained in using sophisticated measures. We use a mixture of self-report, task-based, and projective measures, which allow us to cross-validate information. We specifically look for inconsistencies across these measures and in the data as part of our analysis. If you were referred to ClearView by your child’s current therapist, they have likely accounted for your child’s readiness for testing and have taken this into consideration with the recommended timing for assessment. We also follow up in this regard. In conducting thousands of assessments, we have only had a couple of clients refuse to be tested and can usually use motivational interviewing techniques (or treats) to engage your child in testing.
We conduct assessments with adolescents and young adults in the wilderness on a weekly basis and find this is an ideal time to conduct an assessment. Due to the structure of wilderness therapy, we know that your child is on a set sleep schedule, eating and exercising regularly, has some sustained sobriety from substances (if applicable), and is not distracted from the assessment process by external factors. Additionally, many clients of wilderness therapy programs undergo assessments as part of their time in the program. This keeps your child from feeling “singled out” by the need for the assessment. Most clients also find it to be a welcome “break” from the daily wilderness schedule.
As noted above, we do not take many cases. Our lead psychologists typically complete three to five cases per month. This allows us to spend most of our time each week working on your child’s report. Once your child is tested, we’ll collaborate with you and your child’s treatment team through a series of phone calls and paperwork. We also need your assistance in completing the report in a timely fashion, as we will have a background form for you to fill out as part of the assessment process. This form includes developmental, social, and academic questions that help us begin to sort through a wide range of diagnoses. When families work in collaboration with us to return the information we request, we then have all of the data we need for the report rather quickly, which allows our lead psychologist to score, integrate, and interpret all of the material quickly. Once the data is evaluated, a report will be written and sent to you. We then take the opportunity to address any questions or concerns you may have.
No, we do not bill insurance directly. We’ve chosen to remain independent from insurance networks so we can prioritize the quality and integrity of our evaluations. Oftentimes, insurance companies place restrictions on the amount or type of testing they cover, which limits our ability to fully explore a client’s strengths, challenges, and underlying needs. We do require that clients pay for services up front.
While we do not work directly with insurance providers, we do provide a custom superbill once your final report is complete. Please note that a superbill does not guarantee reimbursement, as we are an out-of-network provider. We typically encourage families to assume they may not receive reimbursement, but submitting a superbill can still be worthwhile.
We accept payment by ACH/Bank (15.00 processing fee) and Credit Card (3.4% processing fee). We invoice through QuickBooks, and payments can be made online after we send the invoice.
The fee for the assessment covers all services provided by our lead psychologists.
This includes the following:
- Consultation with your child’s current therapist and educational consultant (if applicable)
- Protocols needed to assess your child
- In-person assessment administration time, scoring, and interpretation of results
- Interviews with key collateral contacts (e.g., therapist, parents, spouse, medical providers)
- A detailed integrated report with findings and recommendations
- A consultation to review results and answer questions
- Communication with schools to support academic accommodations
- One additional hour of consultation with your child’s current or future placements (if applicable)
If additional support is needed beyond the standard evaluation, ClearView offers tiered consultation packages designed to meet varying levels of need. Please visit the “Services” tab on our website for more information.
Please reach out to our director, Meg Allred, at info@clearviewpsychologicalservices.com. She will schedule a complimentary hour-long consultation call to speak with you about your child’s need for an assessment, your hopes for the assessment, and to answer any further questions you might have. Meg will then match a lead psychologist to your child based on the referral question, the lead psychologist’s expertise, and availability.
While the wait time for most psychologists in the US is often two to three months, we are often available within two to three weeks of your consultation. Meg Allred can give you specifics on availability during your consultation call (see above). However, we cannot guarantee scheduling of your child for any date until we have received the required informed consent, release of information, and payment.