Cancellation and Late Fees

  • See Section 2 of our Agreement for more details on cancellations

Please avoid unpaid sessions, cancelling or rescheduling sessions you have booked unless absolutely necessary e.g. no more than once every eight weeks.  A significant problem both in the NHS and private practice, cancelling sessions (including cancelling by rescheduling) is disruptive to psychotherapy work and wasteful of professional time, particularly when done at short-notice (less than 36 hours).  Unlike NHS staff, who are paid whether a patient attends or not, private practitioners lose both their session time, revision and administration time and income from unattended sessions.  Wasting time in this way also denies other patients the opportunity to benefit from help and support, since sessions are rarely, if ever, filled at short-notice.  For this reason, most practitioners operate using a standard practice of charging half their fee for 48 hour cancellations and the full fee for those less than 24 hours.

  • Follow-up appointments can only be booked once you have confirmed payment of a cancellation or late fee
  • LATE FEES: Individual in-person sessions are payable in cash during the session. If you attend a session without sufficient funds and without having made an agreed prepayment there will be a Late Fee to pay, which increases the longer payment is delayed. It’s not acceptable to expect to pay for your therapy after a session by cash or bank transfer. Additional fees reflect the additional time and inconvenience associated with late payments. See the scale below.
  • ELECTRONIC PAYMENT PROBLEMS: repeated problems with late electronic payments, late confirmations etc waste valuable time. In such circumstances pre-payments need to be in my account before an appointment is issued.
  • CANCELLATIONS/ RESCHEDULING: If you cancel or reschedule a session with less than 36 hours notice, please let me know when you wish to re-attend using the form below, and I will send you a new appointment when your cancellation fee is received. Cancellation fees are listed below and you can send payment using these BANK DETAILS followed by this confirmation form before 9pm to avoid additional Late Fee or invoicing charges:

Confirm Payment of a Cancellation or Late Fee

Sessions missed or cancelled (rescheduled) with less that 36 hours notice are charged using the following scale.  The scale attempts to bring greater fairness to rescheduling when you limit the amount of lost or wasted time, in avoidance of the conventional blanket full fee, which most practitioners in various fields (from hairdressing to physiotherapy) apply regardless of their client’s rescheduling efforts. Late payment of fees is also listed below:

Individuals:

Standard Fee: £60 for 60 minutes/ £90 for 90 minutes

  • A. 25% of the Standard Fee:
    • Rescheduled for the same day (appointment space permitting)
  • B. 30% of the Standard Fee:
    • Rescheduled for within 3 calendar days (appointment space permitting)
  • C. Expected Fee:
    • Rescheduled for 4 days or more
    • Rescheduled for the next calendar week or longer
    • 2nd or 3rd short-notice cancellations in any 8 week period
    • Missed without notice*
  • Late Fees:
    • Session Fee paid before 9pm same day add £5
    • Session Fee paid after 9pm same day add £8
    • Session Fee paid after being invoiced (or 24hrs late) add £10
    • Cancellation Fee paid after 9pm add £6 per invoice

*Missed Sessions: I remain available for the first half of an unattended session after which the session is considered non-viable.  As missed sessions are literally time wasted whilst waiting for you to attend, and are avoidable with a courtesy message in advance of the session, the full standard fee of £60 without discounts applies to both in-person and Skype sessions that are missed without notice.


If I have to cancel or reschedule your session with less than 36 hours notice then your next session fee will be discounted by 25%.

Couples:

  • A and B above
  • C. One partner cancels/ misses: 50% Expected session fee
  • C. Both partners cancel: 100% expected session fee to a maximum of £80
  • C. Both partners miss: 100% of expected fee to a maximum of £100
  • Late Fees:
    • Session Fee paid before 9pm same day add £7
    • Session Fee paid after 9pm same day add £12
    • Session Fee paid after being invoiced (or 24hrs late) add £15
    • Cancellation Fee paid after 9pm add £6 per invoice

Groups:

  • A and B above
  • C. one member cancels/ misses: individual member’s portion of the expected fee
  • C. all members cancel: 75% of expected session fee to a maximum of £90
  • C. all members miss: 100% expected session fee to a maximum of £120
  • Late Fees:
    • Session Fee paid before 9pm same day add £10
    • Session Fee paid after 9pm same day add £15
    • Session Fee paid after being invoiced (or 24hrs late) add £20
    • Cancellation Fee paid after 9pm add £6 per invoice

Therapy Card Holders:

  • A, B, C above OR one pre-paid session forfeited (10+1 Cards)

Swapping

If I ask you, with less than 36 hours notice, whether you would be willing to swap a session time or day with another patient, and you accept, then your swapped session fee will be discounted by £5.

Written work

All written work is pre-paid with any remainder of the unused payment refunded when the work is completed.  Written work that is cancelled before or after commencement of writing is charged according to the time spent on the work, including any necessary reading and administration time spent prior to writing (a minimum fee of £60 applies).  Incomplete work is unsigned and, as such, any unsigned or incomplete work remains unissued and becomes invalid upon cancellation.

Where the credibility of a patient’s presentation, her symptoms or circumstances come into question, or there is a suspicion that material facts have been exaggerated, falsely presented or made in error, any written work, including reports, letters, letters of support for employment or benefits applications, or assessments in written form signed by me are immediately devalidated retrospectively.  A statement of devalidation will be made to any third party seeking from me confirmation of such documents including reasons for the devalidation.