On this page you will find all information regarding the costs and general conditions of my service. Below you will find an overview of the contents of this page so that you can find your way around quickly and easily.
Contents on this page
In all other cases, sessions are charged at the standard rate without discount. In this case, the fee for the respective session is the price stated above plus 10%.
Further explanatory notes
Psychotherapy, couples and family therapy, and supervision as part of ongoing training are exempt from VATand as such the net costslisted here are also the finalcosts.
The initial consultation is chargeable at the standard rate.
Fees areadjusted from time to time to reflect changes in market prices, inflation, and costs. Should I have to adjust my fees during an ongoing therapy/coaching process I endeavor to inform these clients three months in advance so that they can plan accordingly.
According to psychotherapy and coaching research, the first interview is one of the most important sessions and has a significant influence on the success of the further course. In the initial meeting it is important to determine topics and general conditions, but it also serves to sound out the personal level between coach/therapist and client. If our work stops here for whatever reason, I will make recommendations as to which further steps might be useful for you. The initial consultation will therefore be charged at the same price as a normal session.
Private individual sessions can be paid for either in cash or through bank transfer, with a 10% discount applicable to cash payments. For online sessions a 10% discount is also available for advance payments, provided the amount is received in my bank account before the agreed-upon session. Private individual sessions paid via bank transfer made after the scheduled session will be charged at the standard rate without discount, as detailed in the price list above.
For company-sponsored sessions, payment options include settling in cash at the session’s conclusion or making a payment via bank transfer. Discounts are not applicable to sessions booked on behalf of companies. The payment deadline for invoices related to company-sponsored sessions is 14 calendar days.
I currently do not offer places for psychotherapy that are completely covered by Austrian national health insurance. Please note that couples therapy, family therapy and coaching are also not “insurance benefits” in Austria and are not covered by any statutory health insurance. A partial reimbursement of psychotherapy via the health service (“Krankenkasse”) is possible where symptoms indicative of mental illness exist and are severe enough to indicate the necessity of psychotherapy. The amount of the subsidy you can apply for varies according to the “Krankenkasse” you are registered with (last updated 08.02.2024):
- Österreichische Gesundheitskasse (ÖGK): 33,70€ for a 60 minute session
- Sozialversicherung der Selbständigen (SVS) / Selbstständige: €45 for a 50 minute session
- Versicherungsanstalt öffentlich Bediensteter, Eisenbahnen und Bergbau (BVAEB): €46,60 for a 50 minute session
- Krankenfürsorgeanstalt der Bediensteten der Stadt Wien (KFA): €37 for a 60 minute session
A one-off grant for students can be applied for with the ÖH.
Further information on how to apply for the subsidy can be found in German under the following links and in English in the section below, “Applying for reimbursement”.
- Leistung der Krankenkasse zur Psychotherapie, Homepage of the Österreichischer Bundesverband für Psychotherapie
- ÖGK Wien
- ÖGK NÖ
- BVAEB
- SVS
The following steps are necessary so that you can get a refund from your respective “Krankenkasse”:
- Either before the first session or between the first and second sessions, you must obtain a referral for psychotherapy from one of the following health professionals:
- Family doctor
- Specialist for neurology
- Specialist for psychiatry
- Please bring the referral to our next session.
- You must fill out an application for reimbursement from Krankenkasse. This must be done jointly with me.
- You must send the referral for psychotherapy and the application for reimbursement to the respective Krankenkasse, which must approve the application. As already mentioned, symptoms indicative of mental illness of a severity indicative of treatment via psychotherapy must be present for the application to be approved.
- Once you obtain approval for your application you can send invoices that have been issued by me to the Krankenkasse in order to obtain your partial reimbursement.
The Krankenkasse will typically approve up to a specified number of sessions (usually 20-35 sessions if symptoms with corresponding severity to merit treatment of this duration are present). After that, we must fill out a follow-up application together, so that you can apply for a prolongation of reimbursement for further sessions.
In order to guarantee the quality of my services, it is necessary that you come to meetings at regular intervals. This means the following:
- For psychotherapy, every 1-2 weeks
- For coaching, every 3-4 weeks
- For couples therapy, every 1-2 weeks
- For family therapy, every 2-3 weeks
If this is not possible for you, then the quality of the therapy is difficult to guarantee under the circumstances and you should ask yourself whether now is really the right time for starting therapy. Also for my planning, I need to know which periods or fixed times you are regularly available to come to sessions at. If you need a very high degree of flexibility (e.g. “there are no days and times when I am regularly available”), I may not be able to accommodate you during times in which I am heavily booked.
Should you wish to have a longer break between sessions (more than two weeks), I would ask you to let me know in advance so that I can take this break into account in your treatment and my capacity planning. Since I cannot keep therapy places open for a longer period of time, I have to treat longer unannounced absences as a wish to end the current therapy. Please note that this means that you may have to wait for a space to become available again before you can restart therapy.
Psychotherapy via the Internet is not permitted in German-speaking countries. This is regulated in Austria by the Psychotherapy Act (BGBI.Nr 361/1990). The law states here that “currently no psychotherapy via internet in the sense of a scientifically based and evaluated procedure exists”. However, counselling and coaching via the Internet is permitted. This also means that if we are in the middle of a psychotherapy process and you have to go abroad for a period of time then I can offer counselling via internet (e.g. Skype, Zoom) in order to bridge the gap until you are back in Austria again. It must be emphasised here that counselling and coaching via the internet cannot be a permanent substitute for face-to-face psychotherapy.
Booked sessions must be cancelled at least 48 hours in advance. All appointments cancelled less than 48 hours from the scheduled appointment time will be billed at the full office visit fee.
Frequent cancellations and rescheduling of appointments means time and costs for me. It is understandable that the demands of life can require this, but there are also limits to the cost in time that I can offer free of charge. I am prepared to bear the cost in time of rescheduling a respective session the first two times. As of the third request to reschedule a respective session an administration fee of €20 will be charged.
I am often asked how long a therapeutic or coaching process should last. Personal development works the same way as physical development in some respects. Let’s suppose you have the goal of “getting fit,” and you ask a fitness trainer how long it is going to take, then he or she will have to go through with you what “fit” means for you and they will also have to understand and take into account your current fitness level. Then there are factors such as your motivation, curiosity and willingness to engage with exercises. Duration is therefore something that is co-defined by trainer and trainee, by therapist and client, by coach and coachee etc.
That being said, I work with so-called “short-term” therapeutic methods. These methods aim to provide efficient and effective treatment and to help clients to find new solutions and achieve a better quality of life as quickly as possible. As a rule, you should notice positive changes after five to ten sessions. For psychotherapeutic treatment, you should expect that the whole process will last a little longer though – changing (lifelong) habits takes time and needs practice! Coaching processes on the other hand should be completed within 5-10 sessions.
Psychotherapy and coaching require an atmosphere in which clients can feel comfortable to open up. Discretion and the obligation to maintain secrecy are therefore an essential component of my services. My clients can be sure that I take the confidentiality of our conversations very seriously. The contents of conversations are never passed on to persons not present without permission, including relatives or other health professionals involved in the treatment of the client. This obligation is regulated by the Psychotherapy Act (BGBI.Nr 361/1990).
The protection of data is defined by the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). More information about how your data is protected and what your rights are regarding your data can be found here: http://www.wish.wien/privacy-policy. I would like to point out that there are certain exceptions to the GDPR for psychotherapists:
- As psychotherapists are obliged by the Psychotherapy Act (BGBI.Nr 361/1990) to collect data for the treatment of patients, we do not need to obtain prior consent.
- Psychotherapists are required by the Psychotherapy Act (BGBI.Nr 361/1990) to keep data for 10 years after the end of treatment (even after the death of a patient). Within this period it is therefore not possible to request the deletion of your data.
If you use services where it is necessary for other people to be present, such as couples therapy or family therapy, an atmosphere of transparency and openness is important. Without this, trust is difficult to establish. I therefore ask for your understanding that I can only conduct therapies with several people present as long as I do not have to maintain secrets (e.g. one person is having an affair or has a betting addiction but no one else should know this) between persons present. You should also be prepared for the same reason to share the contents of mails, text messages sent letters sent to me and conversations you have had on your own with me.
Exceptions are made here if a revelation would endanger the safety of a person present or if the content is very intimate and a revelation would risk traumatisation (e.g. one person tells me in private about their childhood abuse that they currently do not feel able to share with their partner).
According to the Austrian Protection against Violence Act (Gewaltschutzgesetz) 2019, psychotherapists are obliged to inform either the police or the public prosecution office in the following cases:
- Death, serious injury or sexual abuse
- Maltreatment, neglect or sexual abuse of children and teenagers
Reasonable suspicion alone is sufficient that this obligation applies. This obligation to report does not exist if the client is of age and capable of making a decision and if the following conditions are met:
- Reporting the case would go against the client’s explicit wishes and
- Provided that there is no immediate danger to the client or any other person
Communication with me outside of meetings should take place exclusively by telephone, SMS or e-mail. I cannot respond to communications via social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.) or chat apps (whatsapp etc.) as these channels are not secure and the act would constitute a violation of European data protection law (GDPR). I would also like to advise you here that very sensitive information such as medical data or clinical reports should not be sent by email at all, but rather by post or given to me personally.
Get in touch
If you would like to book an appointment, please fill out the online contact form which you will find by clicking on the button below. For all other requests please contact me by e-mail at kevin.hall@wish.wien. As I spend the majority of my working day in therapy, counselling and training sessions it is difficult to get hold of me by phone.