Financial Transparency
Transparency is part of relational integrity, and it supports authentic mutuality in our relationships with clients, community members, and each other.
This page exists to share the realities of what it takes to run a relational mental health organization—so that our Support program is understood not as an abstract idea, but as a practical response to real conditions.
The Financial Realities Behind Our Work
The Bloomington Center for Connection is a benefit corporation. We are legally committed to serving a public benefit, but we do not receive grants, foundation funding, or government subsidies. Unlike nonprofits, we rely almost entirely on earned revenue and community participation to sustain our work.
This structure allows us to practice Relational-Cultural Therapy with flexibility and creativity—but it also means we must be honest about financial constraints and make intentional choices about how care is funded.
The Cost of Offering Care
On average, it costs approximately $75 for us to provide a single session of care.
This includes clinician compensation, supervision, training, administrative support, scheduling, documentation systems, technology, and the infrastructure required to hold care responsibly.
Many insurance reimbursements fall below this cost—some closer to $68 per session. Over time, this creates a structural gap between what care costs and what insurance pays.
Insurance also limits:
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What kinds of care are considered reimbursable
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How relational, preventative, or exploratory work is defined
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Whether families, couples, or non-diagnostic support is covered
At the same time, many people are losing insurance altogether or facing high-deductible plans that make care inaccessible in practice.
Approximately 35% of our appointments are sliding scale. These include services for gender diverse and queer clients living in rural Indiana without access to care that doesn't out them in a small town.
We offer sliding-scale care intentionally—for people whose financial realities are not reflected in insurance systems, for emerging adults who aren't ready to have the therapy conversation with their caregivers, and for those seeking help that insurance does not cover. This commitment is foundational to our work, not an add-on.
Our sliding-scale, however, can only exist within a larger system that supports it, because for most people who choose sliding scale, a lower rate is what makes care possible in the first place.
Caring for each other includes caring for clinicians
Sustainable Caseloads and Clinician Care
Relational work requires presence, regulation, reflection, and support.
A sustainable caseload for this kind of work is around 20 client sessions per week.
That leaves time for:
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Emotional regulation and attunement
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Documentation, returning phone calls and messages, referrals, and care coordination
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Supervision and consultation
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Research, learning, and professional development
- Restorative play and some deep breaths so we can come back ready to connect.
Clinicians need to be paid for a full week of work, not just time spent in session. Supporting clinicians in this way protects both the quality of care and the longevity of the people providing it. It can reduce turnover, which allows deeper, long term work with a single clinician.
Training, Privacy, and Care Beyond Insurance
We also invest in:
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Therapists-in-training and interns, providing supervision and mentorship that is essential to the future of relational care but not reimbursed by insurance
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Emerging adults who are on their parents’ insurance plans and do not want parental notification—often requiring care outside insurance systems altogether
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Forms of relational support that don’t fit neatly into medical models, but are nonetheless deeply needed
Why Support Exists
Our Support program exists because the current systems for funding care are limited—and because relational work requires more than those systems allow.
Our Support program helps us:
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Offset the gap between cost and reimbursement
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Sustain sliding-scale care
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Pay clinicians fairly
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Train new clinicians
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Offer care and resources that insurance does not support
Support also allows us to share relational tools, learning, and creativity beyond the therapy room—so that connection, prevention, and growth are not restricted only to people in formal treatment.
Affordable Relational Learning for RCT Practitioners
We also believe that Relational-Cultural Theory should be accessible for all, not locked behind expensive trainings or abstract language.
Part of why Support exists is to help us create and share resources for Relational-Cultural practitioners that are:
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Affordable, especially for early-career clinicians and those working in under-resourced settings
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Practical, designed for real sessions, real groups, and real organizational challenges
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Relational, grounded in mutuality, context, power-awareness, and lived experience—not just theory
This includes tools, trainings, and learning spaces that support clinicians in practicing RCT with integrity while navigating the realities of time, burnout, insurance limits, and cultural harm.
We see this as part of sustaining the field itself—not just individual practitioners. When relational clinicians have access to usable, grounded resources, relational care becomes more accessible to everyone. When growth-fostering relationships are available to everyone, the whole world heals.