--- title: "Therapy Rates and Fees: Psychologist Session Pricing and Travel-Based Care" description: "Session rates for private-pay therapy with a licensed psychologist: intake, standard, extended, and clarity sessions, plus mileage-based, all-day, or fixed-package pricing for on-location and home-based care across New Mexico and Indiana." url: https://www.alafiora.com/rates-and-fees practice: Alafiora LLC author: Dr. Esther Lapite-Garrett, licensed psychologist license: https://www.alafiora.com/website-terms-of-use copyright: © Alafiora 2026 note: >- Educational content, not treatment. Reading it establishes no clinical relationship. Every personal account on this page is fiction, written by Dr. Lapite-Garrett from her own clinical knowledge and expertise; she uses AI as a drafting tool and approves every word. No client information of any kind was used to make them. --- **Alafiora · Rates and Fees · Session Pricing and Travel-Based Care** # Rates and Fees ### Clarity, transparency, and intention guide every decision at Alafiora, including the ones about investment. This page covers every fee-for-service session rate in full, plainly stated; the retainer-based Concierge Psychology tier is priced separately, in full, on its own page. What a client is actually paying for extends from a deeply immersive extended session built for the most demanding clinical presentations, through to a standard session that remains the accessible entry point for most individuals beginning care. Every figure on this page reflects specialized, doctoral-level clinical training in an interconnected system of love, sex, and trauma work, a deliberately small caseload, and a level of preparation that extends well beyond the hour spent in the room. Anyone with questions about how to make this work financially is welcome to read the [Payment Options](https://www.alafiora.com/payment-options) page next, since it was written with exactly that question in mind, alongside the [Good Faith Estimate](https://www.alafiora.com/good-faith-estimate-gfe) page for a full projected cost breakdown before care begins. --- # Individual Session Rates ### What a Single Session Costs | Intake, Extended, Clarity, and Standard Therapy Session Pricing All individual sessions are available by telehealth or in the office. Each session type is priced according to its own clinical purpose and length, not on a single flat rate applied across the board. * **Extended or intensive session:** $600 for 110 minutes. Built for the deepest clinical work: intensive processing, a session that needs real room to unfold, or a presentation that a standard hour was never going to be enough to hold. * **Clinical intake and assessment:** $475 for 80 minutes. The first full clinical session, gathering history, establishing a working diagnostic picture, and beginning a treatment plan. * **Clarity session:** $175 for 25 minutes. A shorter, focused session for a specific question, a check-in between longer sessions, or a narrow piece of work that does not need a full hour. * **Standard individual therapy session:** $300 for 50 minutes. This is the accessible entry point for most individuals in ongoing care, and the rate most clients will actually pay session to session once treatment is underway. An introductory consultation is also available as a lower-commitment first step before any of the above. The consultation is currently offered at no cost, which is subject to change. Its format and length are confirmed directly at the time of inquiry. What is being paid for is not only the fifty, eighty, or hundred-and-ten minutes in the room. Before each session, chart review, clinical history, and preparation happen in advance. After each session, documentation follows: clinical movement, risk indicators, pattern shifts, and what carries forward into the next time client and psychologist are together. The work continues between sessions, and that continuity is part of the investment every rate above reflects. Rates are reviewed annually, typically in the fall. Every current client receives a minimum of thirty days' written notice before any adjustment takes effect, and any planned future increase tied to a specific credentialing or scope-of-practice milestone is communicated the same way, well ahead of when it takes effect. --- For anyone whose life carries a weight and complexity a single weekly session was never designed to hold, a higher-access, retainer-based structure exists alongside this fee-for-service model: concierge-tier care, covered in full, along with its inclusions and its investment, on the [Concierge Psychology](https://www.alafiora.com/concierge-psychology) page. --- # Travel and On-Location Sessions ### Home-Based and On-Location Psychological Care | Mileage, All-Day, and Fixed Travel Pricing For clients whose most clinically useful setting is not an office, whether for privacy, the nature of the work itself, or a clinical picture where a familiar environment is genuinely therapeutic rather than merely convenient, home-based and on-location sessions are available across the licensed states. All travel costs are documented in writing and agreed upon before any arrangement is confirmed. Nothing is booked without explicit approval of the cost structure first. * **Local mileage:** $3 per mile, calculated from the office of record to the session location and back. * **Hotel and accommodations, air travel, and ground transportation:** quoted individually, based on the actual trip, and confirmed in writing before travel is arranged. * **All-day on-location rate:** quoted directly once the day's structure is known, since a full day on location is priced around its actual shape rather than a single flat number. For clients at a significant distance, three pricing models are available: * **Mileage-based:** the session rate plus $3 a mile from the office to the client's location, calculated in advance. * **All-day rate plus documented operating costs:** airfare, ground transport, hotel, and return travel invoiced separately at verified cost. * **Fixed travel package:** a single pre-agreed investment covering all anticipated expenses, confirmed in writing before any travel is arranged. Whichever model makes the most practical sense for a given situation is the one used; all three are equally available, and the math behind each is walked through in full before anyone decides. --- The numbers above answer what things cost. What follows answers the questions that usually come up right after seeing them. # Common Questions About Rates and Fees ### What Prospective Clients Ask About Cost and Payment | Private-Pay Therapy, Insurance, and Session Pricing FAQ **Does Alafiora accept insurance?** No, and this is a deliberate structural choice rather than an oversight: Alafiora is a private-pay, out-of-network practice, sometimes described as cash-pay, direct-pay, or self-pay care. No diagnosis or treatment plan is shared with an insurer, no session length or frequency is set by a utilization reviewer, and no clinical decision is shaped by what an insurance panel will reimburse. A superbill for potential out-of-network reimbursement is available on request, and the [Good Faith Estimate](https://www.alafiora.com/good-faith-estimate-gfe) page details projected costs in full before care begins. **Why does a psychologist cost more than some other therapists?** Often, though not universally, because of the training behind the credential. [Dr. Lapite-Garrett](https://www.alafiora.com/meet-the-psychologist-dr-esther) is a doctoral-level licensed psychologist, not a master's-level clinician, and her caseload is built around three interconnected specialty areas rather than treated as three separate referrals inside a general practice. The rates on this page reflect that specific training and that specific narrowness of focus, not a general premium on the word "psychologist." **Is there a higher-access option beyond these individual session rates?** Yes, in one specific structure. The Executive Concierge Retainer, detailed in full on the Concierge Psychology page linked above, covers that tier directly, including its inclusions and its investment, for anyone whose situation calls for something beyond fee-for-service scheduling. **How does travel or on-location pricing actually work?** It depends on distance and preference, since three separate pricing models exist for exactly that reason: mileage-based, an all-day rate plus documented costs, or a single fixed package agreed to in advance. Local mileage is a flat $3 a mile from the office of record; anything beyond that is quoted directly and confirmed in writing before travel is booked. **Will rates change while already in care?** Rarely without ample notice. Rates are reviewed annually, typically in the fall, and every current client receives a minimum of thirty days' written notice before any adjustment takes effect. **Can a single session be shorter or longer than what's listed here?** Sometimes, depending on clinical need. The clarity, standard, intake, and extended formats above cover the great majority of sessions, and where a genuine exception is clinically indicated, it is discussed and agreed to directly rather than assumed. --- Reading a page full of numbers is not the same as being ready to commit to any of them, and it does not need to be. Cost is often the most practical hesitation standing between a hard question and an actual first step, and naming that hesitation directly tends to make it easier to move through, not harder. Nothing about reading this page obligates anyone to anything beyond whatever the next single step turns out to be. **Begin a Confidential Conversation** Cost is often the last practical question standing between deciding something needs to change and actually reaching out, and it is never treated as a reason to delay an answer. Those ready to begin are welcome to start directly with a first session, where history and lived experience are gathered and a treatment plan begins to take shape. Anyone who wants to ask about fit, pacing, or how any of this could work financially first is equally welcome to begin with a consultation, a brief conversation held in confidence within the legal and professional limits of confidentiality any licensed psychologist explains before clinical work begins. [ BEGIN WITH A FIRST SESSION ] [ BEGIN WITH A CONSULTATION ] For anyone still working through what any of this would actually cost month to month, the [Payment Options](https://www.alafiora.com/payment-options) page walks through the practical side of paying privately in more detail, and this page can always be bookmarked, or the QR code in the footer scanned, to keep this practice's contact information close until the timing feels right. ---