Individual ERP sessions
A standard course of ERP is roughly twelve to twenty weekly sessions — about three to five months. Raise the sessions per month to price an intensive format, which compresses the same work into weeks.
Nothing here is saved or sent. Confirm any figure with the practice and your insurer before you rely on it.
The comparison worth making
Not ERP against nothing. ERP against years of general talk therapy, which is what a great many people with OCD are currently paying for — and which can make the disorder worse while both parties experience the sessions as helpful.
Sixteen sessions of the right treatment is usually cheaper than three years of the wrong one, before counting the years.
Before you trust the reimbursement figure
Call your insurer and ask, in this order: do I have out-of-network mental health benefits; what is the out-of-network deductible and how much have I met; what percentage do you reimburse; and what is the allowed amount for these codes. That last one matters most, because the percentage applies to the allowed amount rather than to what your clinician charges, and the gap is often large.
The routes that change the number
Training clinics. University psychology programmes and academic OCD centres deliver ERP with closely supervised trainees at a fraction of these fees.
Group ERP. Considerably cheaper, and for a condition where hearing someone else describe your exact obsession is itself therapeutic, worth more than the price suggests.
Intensive programmes. Counterintuitively, sometimes cheaper out of pocket than private weekly therapy, because they’re billed as a level of care and assessed for medical necessity rather than billed per session. Worth asking about if cost has been the obstacle.
Medication first. An SSRI at OCD doses is inexpensive relative to therapy and has real evidence. Not a replacement for ERP, and a reasonable place to start while you arrange one.
What OCD treatment costs goes through each of these in more detail.