Nurse psychotherapist patients denied coverage

Tara Tourloukis is a registered nurse psychotherapist and has spent the past 19 years as a registered nurse dealing with people’s mental health in the public system.

This past fall, she opened a private psychotherapy practice in Kincardine only to find out some of her clients were being denied benefits coverage for her services.

“Imagine you’re a consumer and you take that first step to look for therapy and you make that first call, which is really hard, and you connect with somebody and then you submit your claim and it gets denied. That’s really terrible,” she says.

Registered nurse psychotherapy isn’t new, but not many nurses choose this route, especially in private practice, says Tourloukis.

There are only 65 registered nurse psychotherapists in Ontario, but Tourloukis says they are recognized both by the provincial government and the College of Nurses of Ontario, as Psychotherapists.

“I realize not everyone knows that psychotherapy can be a speciality for nurse, but we put a lot of time and effort into higher education and courses, and treatment modalities. It’s really important to us to offer this skilled ability for people who are looking for mental health care,” she says.

One of the insurers, Tourloukis says is denying RN Psychotherapist claims, Sunlife, had this to say when contacted by CTV News, “It’s important to us that our clients receive the care and coverage they need. Last year alone, Sun Life paid over 85 million health and dental claims. We are continuously reviewing provider eligibility, including nurse psychotherapists, to ensure plans are meeting our client’s needs.”

“Two major benefit providers are saying things like nurses aren’t qualified to do psychotherapy or they need to be regulated in a different college, when in fact both of these are wrong, and inaccurate,” says Tourloukis.

At a time when mental health is being discussed more openly and waitlists for publicly funded assistance for mental health are months, if not years, Tourloukis finds it frustrating that the help she can provide isn’t being accepted by all insurance providers.

“We know there’s lots of literature looking at why people don’t follow up with mental health care and that’s one of them, rejection. That rejection, and having to do it all over again is going to be such a big deal. So, yes we will continue to do what we’re doing, and we’ll continue to advocate,” she says.