It is very hard to ask for sliding scale. I was on it for many years at my therapist's while I was working and making decent money because my insurance didn't cover them and I really needed (needed not being an exaggeration, I had some bad experiences that were traumatic) a Christian therapist. But I always paid about half the price.

When I applied for SSDI I had no income at all and my therapist offered to lower his rate as low as he could. It wound up that he gave up his fee and I pay a smallish amount for the use of the office and staff. He hasn't made money for treating me in years and he often sees me twice a week.

I still feel bad about this but he says he doesn't even think about it and that it is what Christians are supposed to do. Asking him to do what he had offered to do and go to that extremely low fee was really hard but it was the only way I could keep seeing him (or at that time anyone).

It's hard but you won't be the first to ask nor the last and hopefully they'll have a program set up. The Chrisitan agency I go to (no pdoc) has a 3 step assistance program and then my exception to that which is really between me and my therapist rather than the agency.

I'm sorry for being somewhat harsh about your dr. I just hate that you have so much weirdness from him. And I know how hard it can be to want to let go of a provider. My prior therapist wasn't really helping me much at all and I would never admit that to myself until she was gone and within just a few weeks the current one was actually making me work on changing my reactions and behaviors. The first one I think just didn't know what to do with me and did her best but her very best would have been referring me to the current therapist months before since he had more experience and training with bipolar.

None of this ever is easy.....I'm preparing to beg for financial assistance if I am hospitalized again as I can barely afford the payment plan for the last hospitalization plus a few hundred dollars left from my surgery last year. I can only pay the minimum which means my psych bills are just piling up and another hospitalization puts me at 10% of my income going to the hospital before anything else. Which isn't possible. I dread it but it's probably coming so I'm getting ready. When I was uninsured waiting for Medicare they provided all my care--including my hysterectomy and 3 days in the hospital with that--for free. It's harder to ask now that I have Medicare and "should" be able to pay...

Ugh. Money.