Frequently Asked Questions

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Insurance is not accepted, although you may use a FSA or HSA card. We will provide you with a superbill to submit to your insurance company should you have OON benefits (but see the warning below about this). Cash, credit cards, debit cards, cashiers checks accepted. We can also take payment plans through PayPal Credit & CareCredit.

 MindWorks employs independent contractors who set their own rates. Fees start at $195+/session (insurance is not accepted). Contact each provider individually to discuss their rates. All providers can accept the Gardiner (as direct-pay.)

I will give you a flat fee for the evaluation after discussing your needs. I do require a deposit of around 30% to reserve the day for your testing, with the balance due on the date of testing. If you need to make payments, that is fine, I just do not begin to write up the results until the final payment is completed.

In order to have therapy or assessment services covered under insurance, a mental health diagnosis must be made. This information then becomes part of your permanent health care record and is reported by your insurance company to the Medical Information Bureau. The MIB is consulted by insurance companies when you apply for life, health or disability insurance that needs to be individually underwritten. If there is a diagnosis listed, you, or your child, are very likely to be denied insurance or entrance to certain occupations. Paying privately allows YOU to control who has access to your or your child’s mental health information. Also, this way insurance companies do not dictate which tests your psychologist can use or not use or how many sessions you can have with your therapist. In addition, most insurance companies will not cover psychological testing for developmental delays or learning concerns, as they are “educational” in nature rather than “medical” and therefore, deemed not medically-necessary.

Insurance will often times be willing to reimburse you for your therapy costs. To make your filing process easier, we have partnered with Reimbursify for you to easily submit your claims for out-of-network health insurance reimbursement.  Download the app and get your first five claims for this practice free.

Yes, we are! No need to pay upfront. You can reserve the funds for this in the EMA portal. We will need your child’s FES-UA ID number on the day of testing. I am also a vendor with Orange County Public Schools for Independent Educational Evaluations.

We can see children 14 months and up through age 18. I also see adults 18 through 65. Here is a list of things we commonly assess:

• Gifted Testing
• Pre-K readiness evaluation
• ADHD Evaluation-adults or children
• Developmental Delays
• Learning Disabilities (Dyslexia, Dyscalculia,
• Disorder of Written Expression)
• Independent Educational Evaluations (IEE)
• Accommodation requests for the ACT, SAT, GRE, LSAT, MCAT
• Placement testing for educational consultants
• Anxiety, Depression, Bipolar Disorders
• Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder
• Selective Mutism
• Asperger’s Syndrome
• Autism Spectrum Disorders
• Intellectual Disability
• Oppositional Defiant Disorder
• Neuropsychological Evaluation
• Social Security Disability Evaluation
• Pre-Employment Testing
• (security officers, FAA applicants, Border Patrol)
• Immigration Asylum Evaluations
• Immigration Hardship or DV evaluations

If you or your child is struggling in any area, whether it be learning, friendships, emotional regulation skills, behavior, or at work, and things are not improving, then an evaluation will be helpful to identify why this is happening. Once you know what might be going on, you can better target therapies and supports to help you or your child learn how to better learn or cope. An evaluation may be helpful if:

• You/your child struggles with language, attention, learning or processing information and he/she keeps falling further behind his/her peers or grade-level.
• You/your child struggles with friendships, feels different, is experiencing lowered self-esteem and doesn’t seem to know what is wrong.
• You/your child struggles with anxiety and depression and treatment is not helping.
• Your preschool or elementary child is acting out, hitting, or otherwise being disruptive in school or at home and nothing is working to manage the behaviors.
• Your child struggles a bit and will be advancing to middle school, high school or college; you are anticipating challenges that you would like to prepare for with accommodations.
• You/your child’s neurologist, PCP or psychiatrist would like clarification of what might be going on at home, at school or at work.
• You/your child was evaluated a few years ago but you need to see where skills might be at now.

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Dr. Carmichael is one of only 4% of clinical psychologists who have obtained speciality certification through an organized peer review process as meeting the standards and demonstrating the competencies required in the specialty of clinical child and adolescent psychology. This helps to differentiate her psychological work from the mainstream of child psychologists and establishes her as a qualified practitioner who embraces continued learning and competency in the core areas for the practice of child psychology. ABPP certified psychologists are committed to examining themselves very rigorously and are continually striving for improvement and continual operation on empirically-based principals, open to peer-review and feedback,so as not to become complacent. As a child psychologist, she holds the opportunity and ability to influence and change young lives and that of parents coping with their children’s or families challenges, and she strives to be the best that she can be given that honor and that challenge.