Yeah, that approach sounds so much more sensible - I don't know, this woman just seems to be all about the money. I first got that impression way back when, when I once had to reschedule with 23 hours notice, and she said if it ever happened again it would be a fee. I understand the fee for late cancellations, but saying to someone who canceled 23 hours in advance (when they've never canceled before) that she wanted to charge a fee because they didn't call 1 hour earlier seems a bit much. And then there was one other time when I had to call to reschedule, this time with about 3-4 days notice, and she didn't check her messages until less than 24 hours before the appointment and then tried to charge me the 24 hour fee. (Oh, and on that occasion she didn't return my call asking to reschedule for about 3 weeks afterward - I was seriously considering terminating because of that. Then after 3 weeks she called me and said, "oh, I was just wondering where you have been" - I said, "well, you never returned my phone call about rescheduling, so I was wondering if you were no longer interested in having me as a client." She responded by saying that she sometimes waits for clients to call her twice about rescheduling, just to see if they're really serious about their commitment to therapy. I kind of thought that that seemed like a load of power games, and I wasn't too thrilled about it.)

Anyway, that all happened a long time ago (these three events were spread out over the course of a year), but it kind of gave me a general idea of her attitude on this front. That combined with the fact that the second the 45 minutes are up she just cuts you off mid-sentence, not even letting you finish your thought - I just found that a little irritating. Can't you at least give patients a couple minutes warning of the end of the session so that they have time to wrap up their thoughts, instead of waiting until time's up and cutting them off mid sentence?

I mean, I know therapy is a business, but do you have to make it so obvious? Even her initial intake paperwork included a whole laundry list of fees for this and that, including fees for court appointments, phone sessions, etc - of course these are the facts of life, but it seemed to me like she didn't need to list all that out for patients who were never planning to use her for court appointments or phone sessions. Is it really normal to present new patients with a 2 page long list of fees for various things???? The fact that the emphasis was so much on the money right from the outset seemed really distasteful.