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Costs of Assessment:
This is the only document you will read on this site that will not have been written by an educational psychologist, specialist teacher or parent. I am the site manager and one of the things that interested me when I started to work in this mysterious world of psychology and special needs was the disparity in fees. Naturally most people contacting the site were looking for a psychologist and wanted to know the cost of assessment. I never knew what to say. So here goes this is what I found out.

Some psychologists I called charged as low as £180 for an assessment whilst I heard of people charging £600 plus. The top price I found was a Harley Street based psychologist I phoned. Or so I thought. I called some psychologists listed in the yellow pages and again a great variation. I started to talk to the psychologists working through the site about their fees and how they came about.

If you want to rent a room in Harley Street it is easy. Go and see any of the plethora of professionals that operate from rooms there on a Tuesday and chances are if you go back on a Thursday there will be someone else in the room, probably practicing a totally different profession. So you are paying for a room which is often an illusion.

Some EP's charge very high prices because they don't want too much work. They are happy with two cases per week. At £300 plus per assessment they earn the same as they did when working for a Local Education Authority. There are also EP's who have complex relationships with independent and Private schools. The schools take a cut of the fee in some cases. This naturally inflates the fee. If you are basically told who to see and if you dare suggest an alternate psychologist and get intimidated, or sniffy comments are made about your choice. Ask the school directly if they are taking a cut of the fee. This information came from a number of parents who called the web site. Not the type to be pushed around it must be said.

What about EP's who charge low (not compared to my earnings). These seem to fall into two camps. Firstly the EP who left Local Authority service without a great deal of experience perhaps, built a family and working from home offer a good service but they perhaps lack confidence and depth of experience and hence don't offer specialist skills. The second group tend to either need or want to be busy. They go for relatively low price high volume. These EP's are often enthusiastic about psychology and from experience are often the type who have sought out our site and other ways of generating work. They like the job and if they are listed on this site have substantial experience as well as specialist skills.

From what I now know I would not judge an EP on the fee charged. I would make serious enquiries with respect to their specialist skills. Because if you think about it, you may consult an EP once maybe twice in a life time. It is not like a GP that needs to be local. What you need is highly developed skills that are focused on the area of need as you see it.

Dan Petrov
Site Manager

Footnote:
It should be noted that Mr. Petrov cited European freedom of speech legislation when requesting permission to, publish this paper. The views are those of Mr. Petrov and not the site founders, Rota Psychologists, listed psychologists, ISP or URL owner.

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