Empowering Relief Counseling, PLLC 5814 South 900 East, Murray, UT 84121

"I want to be absolutely upfront that the therapist I saw here, Sam Golden, was absolutely wonderful. I will go into the details of my experience with her later in this review. I post this review out of an obligation to protect others fighting mental health issues from financial distress. Very few things are more devastating than getting hit with an unforeseeable $337 bill after asking for help finding a reason to continue living. It's like asking an EMT to stop your bleeding and instead being spat on. While the primary fault of this issue is the predatory American healthcare system and greedy insurance companies, it could have been both prevented and mitigated by Empowering Relief Counseling had communication and research been done better on their part. I agreed to do a weekly session with Sam Golden so long as it was affordable. I was told Regence Blue Cross Blue Shield would be accepted and after their finance department did whatever confirmations they do on the backend, was told by Sam that I would pay a $25 copay, and nothing more. After hearing this, I agreed to their services and signed their contracts, one of which obligates me to pay for whatever the insurance company does not cover. No big deal, I was told by them that I only had to pay the $25 copay! So therapy began. 5 weeks of very helpful reframing, thought pattern changing, and empathetic yet challenging help was given. Sam Golden is exceptionally talented at being an assertive and challenging guide through self-betterment. She is obviously well-studied, and seems well-practiced, and will no doubt become an extremely influential therapist. If you do choose to seek their services, I recommend seeing her. Unfortunately, at around the 5th session, I saw on my dashboard that I owed $250ish and that after many weeks, my insurance had decided not to cover the therapy. I called Regence and they clarified that if Empowering Relief Counseling had charged me as an in-patient session, rather than "Psychiatric Diagnostic Benefit" then I would have only needed to pay the copay, and that when they ran my insurance prior to the first session, that is how they ran it. The fact that they billed my insurance under a category they did not initially run my insurance caused me to owe $337 out of the blue, make my $25 copay turn into $89 sessions and ultimately fork over a huge chunk of my dwindling savings account. I am now working 3 jobs (main job, Doordash, piano lessons) during my free time, declining time with friends or hobbies, so that I can scrape some spare change back into my savings account to fill the hole this bill left. And I wont go into how detrimental all of this has been to my already desperate mental health. Upon discovering this, Sam was extremely empathetic. She offered pro-bono sessions while I looked for a new therapist, she put the effort into finding and confirming references for me and submitting other therapists to me. She went above and beyond to not only try to lessen the impact of the bill financially, but ensure my mental health continued to be treated. I had to decline her offers since I no longer have the time for therapy with work, and I have ultimately given up on professional therapies since they are all too expensive, too financially risky for this to happen again, and it is probably too late for me anyways. If you choose to pursue services with Empowering Relief Counseling, do not sign the contract, nor begin sessions, until you have confirmed with your insurance independently that they will be covered for what was agreed to. Therapy is now a service for the upper middle class... if you can afford it, congratulations."

"Going to therapy has been life changing. Looking for a queer affirming therapist in Utah, isn't easy. That's why I'm so thankful to ERC for being there for me. I found my therapist, Jacob Lopez. He's truly one of the best therapists and helped me get through so many tough things! Even when Covid hit, ERC seamlessly transitioned me to Teletherapy. I recommend everyone to ERC, and Jacob Lopez."