What's a Good Faith Estimate and why did my therapist send one?

A: It's your price tag, required by federal law. Under the No Surprises Act, any provider treating an uninsured or self-pay client must give a written Good Faith Estimate of expected costs — before the first session and at least annually after.¹ For therapy it's usually simple: fee per session × expected frequency. It is not a contract locking you into a number of sessions; it's transparency about the meter. The teeth: if a final bill runs $400 or more above the estimate, you can open a federal patient-provider dispute over it.¹ A therapist who sends one unprompted is following the law — a good sign, not a billing trick.

Worked example: estimate says $160/session, weekly, ~$8,320/year. Six months in, the fee quietly became $200 and nobody re-issued an estimate → that gap is exactly what the dispute process exists for.

Do this: keep the estimate with your records, and if you're using a superbill → for out-of-network reimbursement, the estimate and the superbill should tell the same story. Cash feels steep? The sliding-scale script →.

Source: CMS, Good Faith Estimates & patient-provider dispute resolution — cms.gov/nosurprises¹