FAQ

Your first appointment is an assessment. We'll talk about what's been going on, your history, and what you want out of treatment. It usually takes one to two hours depending on the type of assessment. At the end, we'll recommend a level of care and talk through your treatment options.

No. You can call us on your own. If what you need is residential treatment, we can help you get there too.

Usually within two days, sometimes sooner. We offer evening and weekend appointments.

We accept most commercial insurance and Medical Assistance, and we're contracted with Schuylkill County and Northumberland County. We'll be accepting Medicare soon.

To check your commercial plan, call the number on the back of your member card and ask whether Visualize Change or Lori Wetzel, LPC is listed as a provider.

Yes, and we accept most Medical Assistance plans. Coverage generally applies if you're within 60 minutes or 45 miles of us. If you're outside that, we may need to arrange a one-off contract with your plan — call us and we'll look into it.

We offer a flat rate for people without insurance who don't qualify for county assistance.

You log in to our client portal. Under the appointments area there's a small video camera link — click it and you're in your session. That's the whole thing. Our team will walk you through setting up the portal and make sure you're comfortable with it before your first appointment.

You do need to be somewhere private, with no one else around. We ask that you treat a telehealth session the same way you'd treat being in our office — not cleaning, not lying in bed, just present and focused the way you would be sitting across from your counselor.

No. It runs in your web browser on a phone, tablet, or computer. There's nothing to download.

Most of our care is telehealth, so you don't need to be local. Our team is licensed in several East Coast states — if you need care from another state, call or reach out and we'll tell you whether we can see you.

Outpatient is typically around three hours a week. Intensive outpatient is nine or more hours a week, more frequent and more structured — it's for people who need more support, or who are coming out of inpatient treatment.

Generally people start at the lowest level of care to see whether they can maintain abstinence there. If they can't, we move them up to the next level.

We will be providing medication-assisted treatment for substance use in the future. Please note we do not have a psychiatrist on staff, so we do not provide psychiatric medications.

It depends on the level of care, on how long it takes you to reach your treatment goals, and in some cases on what a court has ordered.

We'll be straight with you: we tend to keep people longer than other agencies do. If you've been using for ten years, twelve weeks isn't going to fix that, and we'd rather set you up to succeed than discharge you on a schedule.

We also step you down rather than stopping all at once — moving to every other week, then monthly. Losing your support all at once is its own stressor, and we'd rather not do that to you.

Both. We provide mental health assessments and treatment as well as substance use treatment, and many people need both at the same time.

We'll bring you in for an evaluation, and we report what we can to the agency according to the release of information you sign.

Generally agencies receive attendance reports, whether you're progressing in treatment, and whether you're participating.

Yes. There are certain situations where confidentiality can be broken — mandated reporting situations and crimes, for example — but outside of those, what you say stays between you and your counselor.

Call or text 570-875-3333, or email Lori@VisualizeChange.net. Please leave a voicemail — we run an aggressive spam filter on the line, so a message is the surest way to reach us.

No walk-ins. Same-day referrals may be possible if the situation is urgent and we have time available — call us and we'll work it out. Typically we get people in within one to two days, particularly clients coming home from inpatient. We see clients evenings and weekends, because getting someone into treatment quickly matters.

No form. A phone call or text is enough — let us know and we'll take it from there.

570-875-3333, call or text.

Intensive outpatient and outpatient. Telehealth is available for both, which matters for clients who don't drive or don't have anyone to get them to therapy three times a week.

We also provide level of care assessments, anger management assessments, and anger management treatment. We've worked hand in hand with agencies in Schuylkill and other counties for over a decade.

Yes. We're a DDAP-licensed facility, and our team includes independently licensed mental health practitioners who can complete the appropriate evaluations for court.

Once the client is scheduled, you'll have the evaluation that day or the next.

Yes — both assessments and treatment. Our staff is trained in anger management assessment and treatment and maintains continuing education in it, and a licensed practitioner is on staff.

We provide a completion letter to the client and to your agency.

If a client's case is closing with you but they want to stay in treatment, we'll provide the letter you need to close your case while they continue with us. Some people need longer than a case stays open.

Reports can include attendance and whether the client is participating in treatment. We can tailor what we send to what you need, within the limits of the release of information on file.

Two. We need a release from your agency, and we need a separate release from the client — your agency's release alone isn't enough. Without both, we can't share information with you.

A client can revoke a release at any point, and when that happens we're obligated to stop reporting.

Generally we provide a summary of the evaluation rather than the full record.

We provide attendance records, and you can tailor how often you receive them and when you want to be notified about a missed appointment. Reporting depends on having a current release of information on file.

Usually it's because we don't have a release of information on file. Call or text 570-875-3333 and tell us what you're missing, and we'll find the holdup.

We hold county contracts with Schuylkill and Northumberland County, and we're contracted with Medical Assistance and commercial insurance across several Pennsylvania counties.

We take Medical Assistance clients from a number of counties — text us and we'll tell you about yours. We can also arrange a one-off contract with another county if a client needs treatment.

They can apply through the appropriate county agency, or they can self-pay.

We generally offer telehealth, because it removes the transportation barrier for clients without support, without a license, or who've lost their license. Research shows telehealth treatment is as effective as in-person care.

We run telehealth as close to an in-office session as possible. Clients aren't lying in bed or doing other things — they're in a quiet, private space and attentive, or the session doesn't count.

Our staff evaluates whether a client is appropriate for telehealth. Not everyone is.

Yes. Telehealth is widely accepted, and the research supports it on both treatment outcomes and client retention. It also removes the transportation problem that gets clients discharged elsewhere for no-shows.

Yes. Urinalysis and oral drug testing are both available. Oral testing is observed — the client stays on camera and the full process is visible to staff.

Then telehealth isn't appropriate for them. A client needs a reliable connection — home internet or unlimited data. Without that, we'd need to look at another option.