New England B.S. Thread

LMHC is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor. It us the psychological equivalent to LICSW but the only thing they can't do to take Medicare or Section someone. There really should not be a difference but the LICSW lobby is bigger unfortunately. You are absolutely correct about the pay and recognition. If you think about how the rest of the world gets a cost of living increase.....the mental health reimbursements from insurance companies have not changed in 19 years.

 

That is awesome.....I applaud her for doing that. An LICSW is when she can bill insurance yes. Unfortunately a LCSW still needs to bill under a supervisor.

 

Ahh. I expect that there are variations from state to state about titles and licensing. Insurance was always stingy about reimbursement for mental health. I remember the one time I needed to talk with someone they approved something like three sessions and then I'd have to reapply. Fortunately, I only needed one.

 

I may be wrong about her title, because she can bill. She has her on LLC and sees private patients outside of work house.

 

Yes unfortunately there are different variations. LMHC In some states, LPC in other states and so on and so on. The requirements are all the same from state to state but to practice in a different state a person just needs to pass the test within that state. It is actually quite interesting because from what I have heard, the test to get your LMHC is 3-4x harder then the LICSW exam.

 

She has a NPI number, whatever that is.

 

You are correct.....but they can only bill a small amount of insurances. She will not be able to bill a lot of the private ones.

 

Yup.....an NPI or National Provider Number is applied for by everyone in both the mental health and medical field. It is their ID # for all insurances.

 

I know that she doesn't accept Medicare, but I don't know why anyone who doesn't have to would.

We haven't discussed billing or rates. I do know that she certified therapists who are working towards taking their test and that she gets paid. She used the term "Paneling" so that she could bill private insurance.

 

Yup.....paneling is basically getting credentialed with the insurances....or getting on their Panels. You have to create what as known as a CAQH. It is basically like a online professional resume for anyone in the mental health or medical field. Any insurance company has access to it and they determine whether you are good enough to be paneled with them so their members can see you and they will reimburse you. The sad thing is that there are 2 different rates though, private pay rate and clinic contracted rate. Contracted rate is half the reimbursement but they claim it works out because you have a chance to see more people because the insurance company directs their members to you, where as with private pay, you need to advertise for a client caseload.

 

My wife is doing a clinical for DPT right now. She finishes up and graduates in about a month.

Then.... she'll have a commute shorter than mine. 0.6 miles, mines 1.5. Shenanigans.

But yeah she's paying for the course credits, working, and not getting paid.

For me internships are there to lose the company money. I hate the "intern task" mentality. When I had interns I was bringing them with me to meetings and by the end of the summer I had one give a training.

Sure there's monotony in all tasks but I hated the mentality of getting an intern in to do the grunt work 5/40 for the summer. They're there to learn. The best thing you can do is have an intern apply for full time and they run circles around 1-2 years experienced people.

 

All better.

 

That will be a nice project to work on. More and More people are doing things like this to save money rather then buying an overpriced camper they will rarely use.

 

Yeah hes planning on eventually moving into it. Also the overpriced campers are also made of ramen noodles and will be nothing in 4 years.

 

Not quite wife yet (we figured we'd go down the marriage road once she's done with grad school), but she's at Bay Path.

 

They're still selling. Mostly to old people and retirees. That may slow down in the near future...

(PS 9.3% yield.... hmm.... this seems intriguing actually!)

Used campers are great. Every so often I check them out on facebook, pop ups are pennies, travel trailers are really cheap too. Full on RVs 20 years old, low miles (shockingly...), can go for like 10k.

That box truck above is about the limit of my size with just me wife and dog. Once you get into the bigger stuff, you get constrained with where you can even pull off the highway to top off the tanks, let alone find a place to camp. I just don't see the enticing side of seeing the country 1 campground at a time.

Here's a photo of my camp spot.



This was on the shores of lake superior, wayyyy out there. Here was my view....




I've only run into restrictions due to propane tanks (tunnels, bridges), compact parking/parking garages (CB antenna on a past trip). That's what I love about the tacoma. But, there's no toilet, heater, A/C (generator style), captain's chairs, kitchen (other than a camp stove, doing dishes is a pain, etc), comfort for 2 people without the RTT, etc etc etc.

Sprinter van is on the list for the future. But most likely way down low. Plus we don't have spawns, if and when that happens, yeah bigger trailers makes sense.

 

Yeah rv or van is not my style but itll be fun as hell to build. Right now for the gf and I my tacoma is perfect. Will probably add a dog to the mix soon. With kids I think a 3/4 ton will be the move cause for NMW we will probably move to a small boat instead of kayaks.

 

Not trying to steal Rob’s thunder - but I know some of our folks are further north and don’t want to come all the way (maybe it’s a Rhode Island thing “all the way” ) down to CT for toys for tots this year.

 

Bay Path? Which Campus is she attending?

 

It's actually been an online program - apart from the internship, of course. Her bachelors through them was part in person, but she lived closer then. We're about an hour and a half away from the Springfield area.