Services/Policies

Children and adolescents who experience trauma frequently have difficulty expressing their symptoms. We have advanced trained clinicians who have experience working with trauma victims. We address trauma, depression, anxiety and mood and behavioral issues that are impacting their lives on a child level through interactions, games, books, and play. Our team encourages children to express their feelings in non-verbal ways. 

At Connections Counseling Services we help clients work through feelings they have and develop skills to help with their recovery from trauma, depression, and anxiety. We assist the client’s to learn affective and interpersonal regulation by creating a healing space for change to take place. By providing a safe and trusting therapeutic environment, we enable clients to improve their mental health and accept what they can and can not change. We have clinicians that are specialized in working with survivors of traumatic brain injury (TBI). Psychotherapy is aimed at helping a person with TBI understand the injury, accept the injury, and adjust relationships and roles due to the injury. We have a trained clinician who has advanced training working with the geriatric population.

"Life coaching focuses on what’s happening right now, what a person wants next, and how that gap can be bridged."  -- Jane Scudder

Life coaching helps you set a plan of action for present and future. Life coaching is not covered by insurances. 

• Individual Therapy & Counseling
• Consultation

• Family Therapy
• Group Therapy

• Clinical Supervision
• Life Coaching

• Abandonment
• Abuse / Abuse Survivor Issues
• Adoption / Reunion Issues
• Anger
• Anxiety
• Attachment Issues
• Bipolar
• Caregiver Issues / Stress

• Child and/or Adolescent Issues
• Control Issues
• Depression
• Developmental Disorders (Autism, Aspergers, )
• Emotional Abuse
• Family Problems
• Gender Identity Issues
• Geriatric
• Inattention, Impulsivity, and Hyperactivity (ADHD)

• Intellectual Disability
• Mood Swings / Mood Disturbance
• Oppositional and Defiant Behavior in Children and Teens
• Panic
• Parenting
• Posttraumatic Stress / Trauma
• Self-Care
• Self-Confidence

• Self-Criticism
• Self-Doubt
• Self-Esteem
• Social Anxiety / Phobia
• Stress
• TBI – Traumatic Brain Injury
• Worry
• Young Adult Issues
• Other – Not Listed Here

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
• Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)
• Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy

• Emotion Focused Therapy
• Integration of different therapy models
• Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT)

• Solution Focused Therapy
• Systems Theory /Therapy
• Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

We will use Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy, empathy, trauma informed treatment, attachment theory, stress reduction, exploration of underlying trauma, exploring attachment patterns in the family, mindfulness, psycho education, skills teaching, exposure and desensitization, CBT, DBT, harm reduction strategies, and will be exploring other therapies and treatments as needed along with ongoing continuing education. We will help the client to develop a fluid narrative and integrate their trauma (event) into something that they experienced and survived; not as something that defines them.

In case of a psychiatric or medical emergency, please call 911, county crisis at 1-800-849-1868

or go to your local Emergency Room.

All communication between clients and our psychotherapists are kept strictly confidential. Your confidentiality is protected by law. We can only release information about our work together with your written permission. There are some exceptions:

• Suspected child abuse or dependent adult or elder abuse, for which we are required by law to report this to the appropriate authorities immediately.
• If a client is threatening serious bodily harm to another person/s, we must notify the police and inform the intended victim.
• If a client intends to harm himself or herself, we will make every effort to enlist their cooperation in ensuring their safety. 

Cancellation Policy

In order to be effective, therapy needs to take place on a regular basis. The best results occur when appointments are consistently scheduled and regularly attended. Therefore, in the event you need to miss a scheduled appointment, rescheduling is much preferred over cancellation. In the event of a cancellation or reschedule, we request if you could give us 48 hours’ notice. If you miss more than 3 sessions without notice you could lose your preferred appointment time or be terminated as a client. Please understand that others may want your time slot so we cannot just tolerate missed appointments. It is not fair to other clients or the therapists. We understand that on rare occasions emergencies do occur. In these circumstances, we will do our best to reschedule the appointment for an alternate time that week. 

If you attempt to contact us by email, we will make the same commitment of attempting to respond to you within 24 hours. We will use email for routine administrative issues, such as a request to cancel or reschedule appointments. We will not reply to messages about clinical conditions. If you need to reach us, please leave us a message at the office numbers- 570-424-5100 or 570- 730-4211. This is not for a life-threatening emergency or crisis as we cannot respond immediately. In that situation please contact county crisis at 1-800- 849-1868, 911 or go to the nearest ER. We will make every effort to return your call within 24-48 hours, with the exception of weekends and holidays. If you are difficult to reach, please inform us of times when you will be available. If we will be unavailable for an extended time, we will provide you with the name of a colleague to contact, if necessary.

• Aetna
• Blue Cross/Blue Shield
• Carelon (formerly Beacon Health Options)
• Cigna/Evernorth

• Community Care Behavioral Health (Carbon, Monroe & Pike Counties Only)
• Geisinger
• MagnaCare

• Medicare
• Pennsylvania Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP)
• UMR
• Unitedhealthcare

Accepted insurances vary from therapist to therapist within our practice. We will work with other insurances on a case-by-case basis.

Private Pay / Self-pay is also an option for those that do not have mental/behavioral health coverage or choose not to go through insurance.

We can bill your insurance with your authorization. Accepted insurances vary from therapist to therapist. If your therapist is in-network with your insurance, your visits will be covered as per the terms of your in-network benefits. If your therapist is out-of-network, your visits will be covered as per the terms of your out-of-network benefits. If your therapist is not in-network with your insurance and you do not have out-of-network benefits, you may private/self-pay for services. 

Charges not covered by insurance are due at the time of service or upon receipt of an invoice. These charges include, but are not limited to: deductible, copay, coinsurance, private/self-pay, missed appointment fees, electronic payment processing fees, returned check fees, declined payment fees, etc. 

We accept cash and checks in-office, or we can email a Square Invoice that can be paid using a credit card. A 4.25% payment processing fee is added to all Square Invoices. 

In addition to appointments, we may charge an hourly fee of $25 to $150 for other professional services you may need; such as report writing, telephone conversations lasting longer than 15 minutes, attendance at meetings with other professionals you have authorized, preparation of records or treatment summaries, and the time spent performing any other service you may request of us. If you become involved in legal proceedings that require our participation, you will be expected to pay for our professional time. 

If your account has not been paid for more than 60 days and arrangements for payment have not been agreed upon, we have the option of using legal means to secure the payment. This may involve hiring a collection agency or going through small claims court. In most collection situations, the only information we release regarding a patient’s treatment is his/her name, the nature of services provided, and the amount due. 

Periodically, fees will be increased; no more than once per year. Clients will be informed in advance of any changes in fees. If clients are unable to afford the fee, they should discuss it with their therapist.

Clients are discouraged from having their therapist requested or subpoenaed. The party that requests the therapist  for any court appearance and testimony is responsible for all fees. It does not mean that the therapist’s testimony will be solely in the client’s favor. The Therapist will only testify to their professional opinion and to the facts of the case. 

The following fees apply for court appearances:

• Preparation time (reviewing records) $145/hour
• Phone calls $145/hour
• Depositions $195/hour
• Email or written letters- vary depending on what is required and time needed- $65 -$250
• Time required in giving testimony $195/hour
• Travel – if more then 20 miles 
• Time away from office due to depositions or testimony $145/hour
• Filing a document with the court $100 (Plus court fees)
• The minimum charge for a court appearance $500.  This applies only to travel time of 30 minutes or less and 2 hours of time at the location.  This applies when a specific amount of time is set.
• If deposition or testimony has an unknown amount of time required a retainer of $1000 may be needed.
• Any and all legal fees and costs incurred by the therapist as a result of the legal action is applied to client or person who is requesting therapist.

PLEASE NOTE: Payment is due in advance. If a subpoena or notice to meet attorney(s) is received without a minimum of 48-hour notice, there will be an additional $250 “express” charge.  Less then 1 weeks notice then $175 fee is added. If the case is reset with notice of less than 72 business hours, the requestor will be charged $250.

If the subpoena or request is asked by a different or opposing party, then these fees are the requirement of that party.

Expert Witness Fees – all of the above fees apply.  Preparation time may be higher due to the amount of time needed and supporting resources that may need to be utilized.

Payment is due prior to proceedings.

You have the right to end your therapeutic relationship at any time. We support all termination, for whatever reason. In order to initiate a productive departure process, we request that you give us advanced notice. An advance notice of several weeks, and for long term clients, several months. If for whatever reason, you are unable to provide such notice, we will do our best to facilitate the process in a way that feels beneficial to you. If your availability changes we will do our best to accommodate your needs but cannot guarantee that will have that time of day.