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8 pages
Getting paid
What a session is worth, and who actually pays it.
Three decisions sit under everything here. What to charge. Whether to take insurance at all, and if so whether to hold the contracts yourself or let a network hold them for you. And what paperwork you owe the clients who pay you directly, which in California is most of them.
What this section can settle: the arithmetic, and the difference between a published rate and a rumor. Medicare pays a California LMFT 75% of the physician fee schedule, which is $134.47 for a 60-minute session in Los Angeles, and every commercial rate in the state is quoted against that number. What it cannot settle is your own contracted rate, because those are confidential — and no network publishes a California per-session figure, whatever their marketing implies. Where a number is unknowable, these pages say so rather than guessing.
8 pages, in 3 sections: What the work is worth · Getting on a panel, or not · The paperwork. Every figure below is computed or cited, and links to the page that carries it.
Key insights
$1.24 a session
All four routes priced at three caseloads, with the crossover
What you should know about this figure
This figure comes from Headway, Alma, Grow — or my own contracts?, on the 2026 Medicare and Medi-Cal fee schedules and the platforms' own published terms. Your own number will differ — the page shows the working and, where there is a calculator, runs it on your figures.
$41,234 a year
Medicare and Medi-Cal computed, and the truth about commercial rates
What you should know about this figure
This figure comes from What does insurance actually pay per session?, on the 2026 Medicare and Medi-Cal fee schedules and the platforms' own published terms. Your own number will differ — the page shows the working and, where there is a calculator, runs it on your figures.
$106–132 insurance against $180–350 Bay Area private pay
Panel rates and private-pay ranges by region, and what moves yours
What you should know about this figure
This figure comes from What should I be charging?, on the 2026 Medicare and Medi-Cal fee schedules and the platforms' own published terms. Your own number will differ — the page shows the working and, where there is a calculator, runs it on your figures.
