Frequently Asked Questions

William Hasek, PhD, ABPP is available Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9AM-5PM. Will primarily offers teletherapy; however, he is available for in-person sessions at our Forbes Ave office on Fridays.

Monet Sulkowski, LCSW is available Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9AM-5PM. She is only offering teletherapy at this time.

We do offer a free, 15 minute initial consultation for new clients. During the consultation, we will discuss what you want to work on in therapy and determine whether we are good fit for your needs. We will also discuss scheduling and treatment fees.

Therapy costs vary depending on which clinician you see. A 50-55 minute session with William Hasek, PhD, ABPP costs $250 and with Monet Sulkowski, LCSW costs $160.

Like most therapy practices in the United States, we do not accept insurance due to the reimbursement rates, paperwork requirements, and confidentiality issues; however, please note that some insurance plans provide out-of-network coverage that could reimburse you for part of the cost for treatment. You should consult with your plan to see if this benefit is available. If you wish to use your out-of-network benefits, we will assist you with the necessary paperwork so you can obtain reimbursement.

If treatment is not affordable, we offer a sliding scale based on financial need. When you reach out we will see if we can negotiate an hourly fee that works for both of us.

In the initial stages of therapy, it is preferable for us to meet once a week. If that does not work with your schedule, we can meet every other week, though progress in therapy may be slower as a result.

We will not see new clients once every 3-4 weeks. That is simply too much time between sessions for therapy to make any impact on your well-being. If somebody has been in therapy, made progress, and is looking to have occasional sessions to hold them accountable for maintaining healthy behavioral changes, meeting once a month might be appropriate.

William Hasek, PhD, ABPP is available Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 9AM-5PM. Will primarily offers teletherapy; however, he is available for in-person sessions at our Forbes Ave office on Fridays.

Monet Sulkowski, LCSW is available Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 9AM-5PM. She is only offering teletherapy at this time.

Research shows that therapy can be effective in a relatively short amount of time – usually between 8-20 sessions of therapy is enough for most people to make substantial progress; however, the rate of progress depends on how invested you are in the process and how much work you are doing between sessions.

Some people like to go into greater depth and see us for more than 20 sessions. We do offer long-term therapy for those who are interested, though 8-20 sessions is usually appropriate for most of our patients. Usually our longer term clients see us less frequently – once every 2-4 weeks.

You must give at least 24 hours notice if you need to cancel an appointment.

If you do not give 24 hours notice, you could be billed up to the full cost of the session. We generally charge $50 for the occasional late cancellation; however, if you are cancelling appointments regularly, you will be billed the full session cost.

Please note this also applies to your initial appointment. If you schedule an intake and cancel late or no show, you will be charged the full session cost.

We do not prescribe psychotropic medication at this time, though we can provide referrals to trusted medication providers in the Pittsburgh area.

Social, economic, and cultural forces play a large role in shaping our mental health. With every client, we try to understand their presenting concerns in the context of these larger forces shaping their lives. We look at ways patterns of discrimination and oppression have shaped your experiences and impacted your mental well-being, and we identify how you can take back power in your life and find fulfillment.

Both William Hasek, PhD, ABPP and Monet Sulkowski, LCSW have extensive experience working with members of the LGBTQ+ community, and Monet specializes in working with women.

Here is a general breakdown of assessment fees. This would be the cost if you were paying entirely out of pocket and not using any insurance:

• Initial Intake – $250
• Adult ADHD and/or Autism Evaluation – $1,500-$2,000
• General Psychological Evaluation – $1,500-2,000
• Standalone IQ Test – $500

The total cost depends on the issue that needs to be evaluated, how many tests need to be administered, and how long it will take to interpret the data and write up the final report.

Before every assessment we will meet for a clinical interview. After the interview, I will offer you a quote for the testing based on what I think needs to be done. That way, there are no surprises when it comes to payment.

We accept Highmark insurance for assessments. You should check your policy to see whether you need pre-authorization and what portion of the assessment costs the insurance will cover. If you are not in network with Highmark, your insurance may still cover some of the cost of the assessment. 

To check your insurance coverage, please take the following steps:

1. Look on your insurance card and find the member services number. Give them a call during regular business hours.
2. Ask to speak with representative about coverage for a psychological assessment.
3. If you don’t have Highmark, be sure to tell the representative that you are looking for an assessment out-of-network.
4. Give the representative our NPI number so they can tell you exactly what they will be willing to cover. Our number is 1972165462.
5. At the end of the call, ask the representative for a reference number and write it down so you have a record of what they told you they are willing to pay.

Generally, we try to offer as much of the assessment remotely as possible, as we recognize that this is much more convenient for most people.

We customize our approach based on the needs of your organization, though generally the following five strategies are implemented in most of our consultation work:

1. Designing a destigmatization campaign
2. Improving access to care
3. Mental Health First Aid Training for leadership.
4. Resilience training for employees.
5. Redesign of jobs and work policies

These five strategies target workplace mental health at all levels of your organization. Destigmatizing mental health issues and improving access to care creates a culture where mental health can be openly discussed and where resources are available to all employees. Resilience training gives employees skills to manage stress at work and gives them a sense of what therapy could be like, should they want further treatment.

Mental Health First Aid training equips leaders with the skills needed to recognize and respond to employee mental health needs. Redesign of jobs and work policies helps remove and/or unnecessary stressors, decreasing the risk that employees will develop mental health issues as a result of their employment.

We prepare a custom proposal for each individual client that addresses your organization’s needs while remaining within your budget.

We generally prefer to work with organizations to develop a comprehensive workplace mental health strategy. This requires us to understand your organization in depth and deliver interventions at multiple levels (e.g. trainings, coaching, audit of HR policies, etc.).

In total, this work usually takes somewhere between 30-60 hours, usually distributed over the course of 3-6 months; however, we are open to doing one-off interventions if appropriate. For example, we are open to contracting for a single resilience training program.

Research also shows that trainings need to happen regularly to be effective. For example, Mental Health First Aid training tends to lose some effectiveness after 6 months unless booster trainings are offered. We are open to negotiating a retainer agreement that would allow your organization to sustainably address workplace mental health over the long term at an affordable rate.

We use a variety of data points to assess the current state of mental health within your organization and the effectiveness of our services. We often draw on data that you already collect, such as utilization statistics for your health insurance and EAP and ratings on your employee satisfaction and engagement surveys. We also use tools that are specially designed to measure mental health variables at work. We tend to use the Guarding Minds at Work survey or the NIOSH Worker Well-Being Questionnaire (NIOSH WellBQ).

We usually create a custom proposal based on your organization’s needs and negotiate a price for the entire project; however, in some cases it makes more sense to charge an hourly fee. On average, consulting services cost $300-400/hour – the rate varies depending on the length of the engagement and the complexity of the work being done. A 10% discount is available for academic institutions, government agencies, and non-profit organizations. 

William Hasek, PhD, ABPP has five years of experience consulting with organizations. He has provided a wide array of services, including coaching, assessments, and training workshops. His previous clients have varied in size from small non-profits all the way up to large, Fortune 500 companies. Most of his previous clients were in academia, manufacturing, finance, and healthcare. In addition to his work with Cornerstone Mental Health Solutions, Will provides consulting services with another firm, Aiir Analytics.

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are primarily focused on creating a network of mental health clinicians who provide services to individual employees to help them resolve personal issues. Our focus is on collaborating with you to develop a comprehensive workplace mental health strategy that addresses the needs of your entire workforce.

While some EAPs offer services similar to this, it is not typical for them to do so and even when they do, it is not their main specialty. As other workplace mental health experts have noted, an EAP is good for helping individual employees address their mental health, but they are generally not as effective when it comes to changing your workplace culture and eliminating workplace stressors at a systemic level – and that is precisely where we can help.