Practice Policy

General Information

Myra Mental Wellness provides mental health service consultation, psychotherapy, and other mental health services. Our role is to help identify the appropriate type of care for you, recommend a clinician we think may be a good fit for you, and provide ongoing outpatient care. 

Our Promise

We are committed to providing the highest quality care for every client, because we believe that we all deserve access to high quality mental healthcare.

Individual Therapy – Our Briefing Process

For clients seeking individual therapy, the Briefing Appointment allows our care coordinator to get to know you and your clinical needs, and understand your preferences. After getting to know you and what brings you into care, your care coordinator will summarize your discussion and share their clinical recommendations, make a joint decision with you regarding next steps, and match you to the right service and therapist for your unique needs, goals, and preferences.

From there, we consider your preferences and use our research-informed matching process to identify a high quality fit with an Myra Mental Wellness Clinical Psychologist. Our process helps ensure you get the most out of therapy, and we are typically able to connect clients to individual therapy within 1-2 days. However, if you have strict scheduling constraints, it may take longer to find a high quality match that meets your scheduling needs. As part of our promise, we will keep you updated as we work to connect you to care.

To ensure a smooth transition into ongoing care, your Care Coordinator will provide your ongoing therapist with context from your Briefing Appointment. However, 45 minutes can go by quickly – you will dive into your needs and goals in much more detail with your ongoing therapist, over several sessions, in order to build the foundation for successful work together.

We take the time to understand every client’s unique needs, goals, and preferences, so we can tailor care and ensure a high quality match between you and our clinicians. As such, we cannot guarantee to accommodate requests for a particular individual Clinical Psychologist. After we’ve made a match, we will follow up with you to ensure that you are satisfied and that ongoing treatment is going well (often in the form of an online questionnaire).

The Right Fit

If you are dissatisfied in any way with your experience getting connected to care, please let us know by emailing contact@myra.health. Whether you felt under-served by the Matching Appointment, the process of getting connected, or your interactions with our team, we will always work with you to understand what went wrong and course correct together.

If you feel like your clinician is not the right fit please either speak with your Care Coordinator or email contact@myra.health and they will help you to find a new clinician.

Attendance Policy

At Myra Mental Wellness, we believe everyone should have access to exceptional mental healthcare. In addition to a high quality match, decades of research show that continuity and consistency of attendance is one of the best predictors of whether therapy will be effective for you. Attending your appointments regularly and on time allows you to make the most out of your time with your Psychologist and ensures that you are both set-up to do the best work possible together. While many people attempt to cope with stressors by using substances, intoxication can impair one’s ability to function and get the most out of treatment. As such, please abstain from using substances prior or during session.

Additionally, we do our best to prioritize your scheduling needs and preferences. In order to both make sure you have your desired weekly appointment slot and to offer empty slots to other clients seeking care, advanced notice of appointment cancellations is needed. Advance notice also allows us to accommodate rescheduling, when appropriate, as we know some changes are unavoidable.

Your care, the care of our other clients, and the empowerment of our clinical team are our highest priorities. Our attendance policies are built with that in mind.

Cancellations & Missed Appointments

For Briefing Appointments:

  • Out of respect for your Care Coordinators  and for other clients who are waiting for consult slots, notification to cancel or reschedule a matching appointment must be provided at least 24 hours before the appointment start time.
  • After booking your Briefing appointment, you will be asked to complete an Myra Mental Wellness Client Profile. To ensure a high quality matching appointment and allow your Care Coordinator time to review, it is important that you complete your Client Profile at least 24 hours before your consultation. If you have not completed your Client Profile by 3 hours before your appointment, we may cancel and reschedule your appointment.

Notification can be sent via email to contact@myra.health or by phone at 91-8368680970 (9:00 am – 9:00 pm, Monday through Sunday).

You will be responsible for the entire consult appointment fee if cancellation or a request to reschedule occurs fewer than 24 hours before the start of the appointment, regardless of our ability to reschedule.

For Individual and Couples Therapy Appointments:

  • At minimum, 24-hour written (e-mail) cancellation notice is required via email to your Psychologist’s individual email. You will be responsible for the entire fee if cancellation occurs fewer than 24 hours before the start of the appointment.

Earlier notice, especially for multiple cancellations (e.g., due to extended vacation) is greatly appreciated, as it allows your Psychologist to accommodate other clients’ needs during that time. With earlier notice, we might be able to reschedule your session. If you give us more than 24-hour notice and we are able to reschedule your session, it will not count as a cancellation or towards your missed appointment count. If notice is given less than 24 -hours in advance, the appointment will count as a cancellation/missed appointment regardless of whether we are able to reschedule.

We recognize physical illness can’t be predicted. If you are not well enough to meet in-person, we strongly encourage you to arrange a Teletherapy (virtual) session with your clinician via secure video session. As with above, 24-hour notice is greatly appreciated, though rare exceptions will be made on a case-by-case basis for illness.

In order to hold your slot and ensure the continuity needed for high-quality care, we allow a maximum of 4 missed appointments (advanced cancellations and/or no shows) every 6 months (January – June; July – December)

After 4 cancellations, your Psychologist will work with you to find a solution if a different time slot would work better for you.

Timeliness

Please try to be on time for your appointments to make the most use of your time with your clinician.

  • If you are running late, please contact your Psychologist via phone with an approximate arrival time.
  • If you arrive more than 15 minutes late for a therapy session or more than 10 minutes late for a Briefing session, there may not be sufficient time for a productive session and the appointment may be cancelled and charged at our full rate. Please note that we always bill for full sessions, even if you are late.
  • Standard meeting length is 30 minutes for Briefing sessions, 50 minutes for individual therapy sessions. In some cases, your clinician may recommend two back-to-back sessions to administer specific treatments. These would be billed as two separate sessions.

Teletherapy

Teletherapy is the provision of psychotherapy services digitally, typically via secure video conference or in some circumstances, via phone. We focus on in-person connection wherever possible at Myra Mental Wellness. However, teletherapy offers a highly effective option for continuity of care when in-person care is not possible or not preferred. If you and your Psychologist decide to engage in care via teletherapy, your clinician will review the below information and obtain your verbal consent to proceed at the beginning of your first teletherapy session.

  • The Myra Mental Wellness Notice of Privacy Practices and its other policies and procedures apply with respect to teletherapy services, just as they do to in-office services.
  • Teletherapy sessions are confidential under the same state laws that protect the confidentiality of in-office sessions, and no one is permitted to record a teletherapy session without consent from the other party.
  • There are potential risks to engaging in teletherapy, including:
  • You may experience interruptions, background noise, or technical difficulties
  • While we use secure, HIPAA compliant software for all of our video sessions, we cannot guarantee unauthorized access to your session
  • There are also benefits to engaging in teletherapy, including:
  • You will experience easier access to care and continuity of care
  • Teletherapy offers the convenience of meeting from your desired location
  • Your clinician may determine that due to certain circumstances, teletherapy is no longer appropriate for your care. Should that be the case, they will provide referrals as needed, making sure teletherapy is effective for you
  • Sessions will be conducted via video conference whenever possible, using the secure video provider identified by Myra Mental Wellness.
  • We will share instructions about how to join your video session.
  • It is important to be in a quiet, private room to avoid interruption during your session.
  • It is important to use a strong and secure (rather than public/free) WiFi/ cellular connection to avoid technical interruptions or breaches during your session.
  • Please refrain from eating, using alcohol or other substances, driving, or using other devices while in session.
  • Cancellations and billing for teletherapy sessions are handled the same as in-person sessions in accordance with Myra Mental Wellness policies above.

Finally, some insurance health plans do not reimburse teletherapy sessions. It is your responsibility to find out if your plan will cover these appointments.

Measurement-based care

Understanding how therapy is going for you allows us to tailor your care.

Measurement-based care (MBC) is the practice of regularly checking in on how therapy is going for you, enabling your clinician to better tailor care to your unique needs, goals, and preferences. In addition to a high quality match and consistent attendance, decades of research show that measurement-based care makes therapy more effective. It is an essential part of our approach at Myra Mental Wellness, as we work to deliver the highest quality care possible.

  • As a standard part of ongoing care, two brief surveys will be emailed to you on the day of your session: a pre-session survey and a post-session survey.
  • We ask that you complete the pre- and post-session surveys for each of your sessions.
  • You may ask your clinician to share and discuss your survey responses, and your progress in care, at any time.
  • All questions are clinically-validated and commonly used in care settings.
  • Your clinician may choose to use additional clinically-validated surveys, specific to your care, if appropriate.

The information collected as part of measurement-based care will be a part of your health record and will be used by your clinician to inform your care. Your information may also be used in anonymised and aggregated form to assess the quality and effectiveness of our services across the organization. If you have any concerns about completing the surveys, please discuss them with your clinician.

Medication

We only provide Psychotherapy, which is a form of talk therapy. It does not involve prescription of medication. However, we would provide various exercises and techniques during the therapy as required on case to case basis.

Payments & Refund

Payment is due at the time of the appointment. Please note that we update our fees at the start of each year and as needed in line with growing business and team costs. Our fees listed below are subject to change with 30 days written notice at any time.

Briefing Appointment: No Fees

Individual Therapy: INR 1500 / session

Couples Therapy: INR 2000 / session

Payments have to be made before the session starts, failing which the session will stand cancelled.

In the circumstance of violation of our cancellation policy, no refund will be provided. Post a session is conducted, refund will not be processed. 

Given the current pandemic situation, in case of health emergencies, upon showing valid documentation of illness, refund may be processed. We strive to provide the best care to our clients and at the same time value the time of our Clinical Psychologists who are giving their best to provide care. For further queries email us at contact@myra.health

Insurance Reimbursement

We require direct payment from our clients at time of service. However, we can help you submit paperwork to your insurance company to help you obtain reimbursement for a portion of the cost of your care if your health plan includes out-of-network coverage (common with PPO plans, for example). Under some plans, in-person and teletherapy sessions may be reimbursed differently. We cannot guarantee that we will be able to get you reimbursed for any of the cost of a session.

Confidentiality

The session content and all relevant materials to the client’s treatment will be held confidential unless the client requests in writing to have all or portions of such content released to a specifically named person/persons. Limitations of such client held privilege of confidentiality exist and are itemized below:

  1. If a client is at imminent risk of harming themself or attempting suicide or otherwise conducts him/her self in a manner in which there is a substantial risk of the client incurring serious bodily harm.
  2. If a client expresses an intent to cause grave bodily harm or death to another person.
  3. If the therapist has a reasonable suspicion that a client or other named victim is the perpetrator, observer of, or actual victim of physical, emotional or sexual abuse of children under the age of 18 years.
  4. Suspicions as stated above in the case of an elderly person (65 or over) or a dependent adult who may be subjected to physical, emotional, financial, or sexual abuse, or isolation (“dependent adults” are persons ages 18 – 64 who have physical or mental limitations that restrict their ability to carry out normal activities or protect their rights).
  5. Suspected neglect of the parties named in items #3 and # 4.
  6. If a court of law issues a legitimate subpoena for information stated on the subpoena.
  7. If a client is in therapy or being treated by us by order of a court of law, or if information is obtained from us for the purpose of rendering an expert’s report to an attorney who represents you.

A note regarding release of records for Couples therapy – If you are currently or formerly a Couples therapy client of Myra Mental Wellness, it is our policy that both partners must provide authorization for the release of records to a third party. In this case, Myra Mental Wellness will provide an authorization form that requires both parties to complete and sign prior to the transmittal of records.

Digital Communication

We will use digital forms of communication with you (unless you would prefer an alternate means of communication), including text message, email, and our online client portals. Please know however that we cannot ensure the confidentiality of any form of communication through electronic media, including text messages.

Our care coordination team will seek to return messages in a timely manner, but we cannot guarantee an immediate response. We request that you do not use these methods of communication to request assistance for emergencies. You should instead seek appropriate emergency services. If you or someone you know is experiencing an emergency or crisis and needs immediate help, call 112 or go to the nearest emergency room. 

These practice policies were most recently updated on January 1st, 2024.