By Shanna Reeves, Ph.D., LSSP and clinically reviewed by Teri Schroeder, LCSW
When people become interested in psychological assessment and start looking for practices that offer it, they quickly find that pricing varies widely. A consumer, particularly a first-time consumer of these services, can be pretty overwhelmed and confused by the pricing of such evaluations. We often say “people don’t know what they don’t know” when seeking such a specialized service. It can be particularly frustrating when people pay thousands of dollars and are left with a very lengthy document that they have trouble understanding and no clear plan for moving forward. At our practice, Texas Psychology & Assessment Center, people often come to us to help interpret another psychologist’s lengthy report, with pages of words and tables that leave them asking, “What does this really say about me/my child, and where do I go from here?” That should not be the result of a process that costs so much in both dollars and time.
Read on for what to expect from a comprehensive psychological assessment, why a thorough assessment costs what it does, and what questions you can ask to be a more informed consumer.
Looking for a psychological assessment in Austin? Here’s what goes into the cost, and what to ask before you commit.
Why Do Psychological Assessments Have Such a High Price Tag?
Cost of Materials: Why Are They So Expensive?
The tests we administer are purchased from publishers that spend years developing, standardizing, validating, and establishing the reliability of those tests. In other words, it takes a lot of time and money to make sure a test measures what it says it measures, and that it does so in a valid way. The cost of these materials reflects the research and development behind the tests themselves, not the pieces of paper the examiner and the client write on. For a comprehensive evaluation, materials alone run approximately $350 to $700, and that cost has to be reflected in the pricing.
The Psychologist’s Time: More Than Face-to-Face Hours
“But we only spent 8 hours together. Why is it so expensive?” For every psychological assessment we complete, most of the psychologist’s hours go into formulating the diagnostic picture and writing the report. Our team estimates that for every hour spent with the client, 2 to 3 hours are spent behind the scenes on scoring, interpreting, writing the report, preparing the feedback, and providing follow-up recommendations and care. You are paying for the psychologist’s time and for their expertise. That often includes the psychologist consulting with the rest of our team of psychologists on the results, so that each person gets the most thorough assessment and the most thoughtful, practical, individualized recommendations we can give.
What Does a Comprehensive Psychological Assessment Entail?
Step 1: Thorough Diagnostic Interview
We start with a detailed interview that covers the client’s history as well as their current status and the difficulties that brought them in.
Step 2: Developing a Collaborative Assessment Plan
Next we identify the areas of focus and how each one will be assessed. Our practice evaluates children, adolescents, and adults. Typically, people seeking our services are having difficulty with school or work to the point that they will likely need reasonable accommodations to be successful. Because of this, we usually assess intellectual functioning, academics, attention and executive functioning, and social and emotional functioning. That tells us what they need to succeed in school or work, and also how they can do better in other areas of their lives.
With the client’s consent, we also gather information from people who see the client in daily life. This can include parents, teachers or professors, significant others in the case of adults, and the therapists and psychiatrists involved in their care. For children, school-based observations are often part of the process as well.
Step 3: Testing Sessions
Then we plan the testing day or days together. The typical amount of time spent directly with the client on testing activities is 6 to 8 hours. The exception is testing focused on a specific question for an adult, such as targeted ADHD or autism testing for self-discovery, which may take as few as 3 to 4 hours. Testing can be split into multiple sessions if you prefer, and there are benefits and drawbacks to either approach.
Step 4: Post-Testing Analysis and Report Writing
At this point your work with us is just about done, but OUR work is really just beginning. Next comes scoring the quantitative measures, pulling all the data into tables and charts, and interpreting what it all means. Not just what it means diagnostically, but what it means for you in your daily life.
Recommendations are tailor made so the information doesn’t just sit on a page. They point the client to resources for learning more about any diagnoses or areas where they can improve, along with practical steps for daily life. They also include steps for the people around the client: parents or significant others, teachers, therapists, and other providers who are part of the client’s path forward.
Writing the report often takes several hours by itself. Our focus is on a document that is highly readable and makes sense to more than one audience, so it helps the client and also the schools, workplaces, and providers (therapists, psychiatrists, coaches) who work with them on their goals.
Step 5: Feedback Meetings and Follow-Up Care
Feedback meetings are critical. This is when the psychologist and client sit down together to talk through the results and what they mean for the client’s life. The psychologist explains the findings in conversation, and the client has time to reflect and ask questions. Best practice in psychological care is that minor clients get their own feedback in addition to their parents or caregivers.
Follow-up care matters too. Clients often have questions after the report and feedback are shared, and we are happy to help by email or with additional conversations when needed.
Still have questions? Read more about what our psychological assessments include, or reach out to our team. We’re happy to walk you through what to expect.
What Questions Should You Ask When Choosing a Psychologist?
Psychological assessment, when it’s done well and in line with the highest standards and ethics of psychology, can be life changing. It is an investment of time and care, and it draws on thousands of hours of training and education. It also can’t easily be “redone” if it isn’t done well the first time. There are standards for how much time must pass between assessments, and the same instruments shouldn’t be given again within a year of the first administration. So the practice and psychologist you choose deserve careful thought. When you’re deciding who to trust with this process, here are the questions I would ask:
Who Will Conduct the Testing?
Does the psychologist work with you directly, or will you complete the testing with a technician or someone with less training?
How Many Testing Clients Does the Provider See Each Week?
You will have a different experience with a psychologist who sees one or two testing clients a week than with one who sees a testing client every day. Higher volume practices often use technicians and students to do the actual testing, write the report, and generate the recommendations, with the psychologist only reviewing those findings. In that case the psychologist may spend less than an hour with the person being evaluated, especially if that person is a child or student who wasn’t part of the initial interview.
Is the Report Written for You?
Is the report written by the psychologist and tailored to you, or does the psychologist cut and paste the template interpretive reports that the scoring software generates? Will the psychologist reach out to people involved in your life (therapists, psychiatrists, teachers) to get a fuller picture of your strengths and challenges?
What Is the Feedback Process?
Is it a sit-down meeting, and is it included in the price of the evaluation? It isn’t consistent with the professional ethics of psychology, but some practices do charge extra to sit down and discuss the results after sending a report.
Will Your Child or Teen Get Their Own Feedback?
An individual feedback meeting for the child or teenager is one of the most important parts of a quality psychological assessment. It gives them self-understanding, awareness of their strengths, and a name for challenges they run into every day. In our practice, every child or teen gets their own feedback session with the psychologist they worked with during testing, to “close the loop” on the evaluation. They get an overview of the findings in developmentally appropriate language, plus a handout or a letter written individually to and for them that they can look back on in the weeks and months to come. I have had parents contact me years later to tell me how often their child went back to that letter, and how much it helped the family and the child’s care team to share a common language around strengths and challenges.
What You Get From a Good Assessment
At the end of a good assessment you should have more than a report. You should understand what is going on for you or your child, and you should know what to do next. In practice that looks like:
- Clear answers. You know what the testing found, including your strengths, and why it matters day to day.
- Recommendations written for you. Steps based on your history, your goals, and what the people around you have seen, rather than boilerplate from the scoring software.
- Guidance for the people who support you. Parents, teachers, therapists, and psychiatrists get suggestions they can use too.
- A document you’ll come back to. A readable report, and for kids a letter of their own, that stays useful for years.
Cutting corners when choosing a provider can cost more in the end. An unclear or incomplete evaluation often has to be reinterpreted or redone, which means more time and more money.
The Bottom Line
A thorough, collaborative, therapeutically driven assessment is a complex process with hours of work behind the scenes. The cost covers the report, and it also covers the work of helping a person understand themselves and where to go from there. It’s an investment worth making carefully, so take the time to vet who will provide that care, what their process looks like, and the standards they hold themselves to.
Photo by Nguyen Dang Hoang Nhu on Unsplash
