Frequently Asked Questions

Where do sessions take place?

We provide services to folks globally, which is just one of the many advantages of meeting online. Virtual appointments can help remove barriers related to access such as transportation or mobility issues.

Additionally, for folks with medical trauma or social anxiety, having to put pants on, driving to a strange building, and then proceeding to talk about your trauma can feel like AND totally be a lot!

We want our offerings to be accessible and comfortable, which is why we encourage meeting in your favorite spot, in your comfy clothes, with/without your camera on. Side bonus, it's easy for fuzzy friends to join and to have snacks, tissues, and creature comforts on hand.

Does it matter where I live?

We utilize a therapeutic coaching model and have divested from licensure which allows us to support folks anywhere in the world. This is helps us provide greater access to folks in therapy or support “deserts” - places where finding access that both meets their needs AND aligns with their values can be difficult if not impossible.

Speaking of licensure…

In alignment with our abolitionist & decolonial views, Tacocat Wellness, LLC. is intentionally a NON-LICENSED educational & therapeutic practice. We have divested from licensure in order to better support our community by moving away from the medical, carceral, and western model of psychology. A divestment from licensure does not mean that we are without ethics but rather, that our ethics can be oriented towards community healing, collaborative care, & social justice. If you have specific questions about this as a prospective client or as a fellow provider who may be interested in how we’ve gone about this process, please reach out to us directly.

So what is therapeutic coaching?

There’s a narrative that therapy helps you heal and coaching helps you grow, so we thought, “why not mix the two together?” - blend in a handful of trauma-informed sprinkles, a dash of somatics, and really create a person centered model that simultaneously meets a variety of intersectional needs!

This model allows us to work collaboratively to understand how your brain and nervous system work, while supporting your unique identity intersections, lived experiences, and mental health. Further, this model supports our abolitionist views by allowing us to divest from psychiatric incarceration, law enforcement involvement, and the pathologizing of existence.

Do you take insurance?

We have intentionally decided not to accept insurance and do not have the intention of doing so in the future. While insurance can help manage the cost of medical care or higher levels of therapeutic intervention, there are several challenges that can occur when accessing outpatient mental health or trauma care through commercial insurance. As our care approach and specialities have evolved, we realized that accepting insurance does not align with the work that we do or our values.

Insurance companies set limits on interventions your practitioner is allowed to use, how often you are able to engage in support, how long it is allowed to last, and our least favorite – what we are working on together during sessions. Sadly, insurance companies often do not consider a person’s lived experiences, but rather, their diagnostic and billing codes.

One of the benefits of navigating outside of insurance means that we don’t have to label your trauma or stress responses as being a “disorder”. Of course, diagnoses used can be very validating for some and have the potential to direct treatment, however, once that diagnosis is in your medical records – it’s permanent for insurance companies to use when determining your benefits.

One of the primary issues we have found with insurance is that they require their customers to have a "medical necessity" for mental health services. Essentially saying, “you need to be unwell by our standards to need mental health support.” This perspective is harmful for many reasons, and sends the message that therapeutic intervention is only for people who “need to get better” & that once they are “better” they no longer need their mental health services covered. This could not be further from what humans actually need to heal and feel whole.

We can occasionally accept FSA/HSA payments depending up each individual’s circumstances. This is on a case by case basis. We do NOT provide individual “super-bills” but do provide individual payment agreements.

What about diagnoses & assessments?

While we do have extensive experience in diagnostics and assessments, we have chosen not to continue to provide these services as a stand-alone.

This means that we do not assess folks for specific conditions and then send them on their way.

What it does mean, is that we support evidence based conversations around self-identification & self-diagnosis, previous diagnostic history, and when it feels appropriate, we can facilitate and review diagnostic criteria.

We acknowledge that gaining access to a formal diagnosis can be validating. We also acknowledge that there is inherent privilege related to medical literacy, finances, and other intersectionality’s that may make receiving a diagnosis difficult or inaccessible for some.