That is amazing.

We provide our time in an office in one hour increments to help people work through their emotional difficulties. If we can't be there, or a patient can't be there, we are simply not paid.

Really? Because most health professionals I've visited will charge you for the visit if you don't cancel in time.

When my sister had an au pair she knew people who would constantly break their contracts and not get why they couldn't ask their au pair to work more than 40 hours a weeks, or stay overnight with the kids, etc.

I bet if a patient doesn't show up without giving sufficient notice that the patient gets billed. If she thinks that her billable hours as a therapist are equivalent to a nanny's hour of time, she needs a new profession.

She has no contract with her patients? Like "if you don't cancel more than 24 hours in advance you are billed $x"?!? That's not terribly well thought out of her. But kind, I suppose. Unlike most doctors and dentists and such, though.

I'm thinking this parent/therapist has a Jackass Clause.

If we can't be there, or a patient can't be there, we are simply not paid.

I was gonna call bullshit, but I see other people beat me to it. I also want to know where she got her degree. My soon-to-be therapist friend expects to make quite a bit. She needs to if only to make the degree worth it.

If she's working that way, more power to her. But it's a luxury, much like having a nanny. And her nanny probably can't afford that luxury.

Yup, I'm with everyone else. I have never, ever, ever heard of a therapist who didn't charge for a no-show without sufficient advance notice. And it's not a matter of kind or not-kind; my former therapist was one of the kindest people I've ever known, but she had a demanding practice with lots of patients clamoring for her time, split the office rent in an expensive district with three other therapists with similarly demanding practices, and was also juggling all this with two kids and a daily Bay Bridge commute. If she showed up for a scheduled visit and had to sit on her ass for an hour because a patient didn't show, she still had to do the commute and the rent and all the rest of the overhead entailed in any medical practice, so you bet your damn bippy she charged. And I didn't blame her a bit, either.

Sparky's correspondent sounds like an impressive triple threat: jackass, weasel and complete moron. Well played, madam, well played!

To - well, I hate to say defend, but - I would assume that Snowmageddon '10 is the kind of circumstance where she is not in fact charging her patients, regardless of any 24 hour policy (that I am dead certain she has). But your contract with, and obligation to, your therapist is quite different than to your nanny.

Governor just told the State of Maryland to butch the hell up, essentially. I find that funny.