One of the reasons I post my fees online is that telling parents how much assessments cost is one of my least favourite things to do. The common response I get is “Oh really that much?” with a nervous smile or sigh over the phone. As a parent myself I totally get it. Between school fees and extra-murals its hard to wrap your head around the cost of an assessment that can range anywhere between R4500 to upwards of R10500.
To throw fuel on the fire, medical aid only ‘covers’ it in the sense that it comes out of the medical savings account like most psychology sessions. That is of course if they allow it at all, many don’t.
Now if I weren’t an Educational Psychologist and I was taking my daughter to see one I would probably be too polite to ask (although you can count on the fact that I’d be thinking it) how on earth could it be that expensive?
With that being said this is a very honest and open attempt to try and help parents understand why it costs what it costs.
- The assessments we use (essentially tests) are incredibly expensive. For example, the materials we use to administer an IQ test can cost anywhere from R10000 for a locally produced set, to R50000 for the latest internationally recognized ones. The internet is full of ‘cheap IQ tests’ but these are as useful as measuring someone’s IQ using a game of snakes and ladders. We need to use tests which are valid and trustworthy. Which tests we use is a matter of debate amongst my colleagues but personally I feel the international tests today offer far more information so I use these exclusively. To me and I’m sure all of my colleagues, obtaining valid, rich and extensive data is vital for a good assessment. And the IQ test is only one of many we use so you get the idea I hope.
- Assessments take a long time. If someone can assess your child in 3 hours you should be asking questions. Doing a thorough and full battery of tests requires time. Depending on the age of the child this can be 6 or 7 hours or even spill over into a 2nd day. As psychologists, we bill according to time and therefore this needs to be factored into the total cost of the assessment. The average psychologist charges between R750 and R1200 per hour so you can understand why the cost accumulates.
- Preparation for the report. In order to make sense of the data collected during the assessment, we need to ‘score’ it. This means working out statistical differences which can also take in excess of several hours. I am thankful for the advent of technology which helps me with this but many of my colleagues still score manually. Scoring apart, we need to then make sense of the information and create hypotheses that help shed light on any potential diagnoses. Then we need to make contact with schools, consider recommendations and possible referrals and none of this is billed for.
- The report. A report is the product of an assessment and the truth is it can take hours and hours to compile but this too is not charged for. If it were, assessments would simply be out of reach for most parents. For interest’s sake I worked out that if I included every hour I work on an assessment, it would cost closer to R17000. Literally double. Thankfully we only charge for contact time.
Concluding thoughts
What hasn’t been touched on already is that reports need to be comprehensive and equip parents and teachers with a better understanding of the child. There are no guidelines in terms of what a comprehensive report looks like so these documents can be anything from 3 to 25 pages and therefore are going to take different lengths of time to formulate. Opinions vary widely as to what is actually necessary but I can only speak for myself when I say I struggle to shorten my reports below 22 pages. I just feel all the information I gather is too important to omit.
My honest opinion is that I wish I could charge a nominal fee for assessments because I believe it is a human right. The kind of assessments given to children from less advantaged socio-economic backgrounds via the provincial educational departments is frightening. I know because I have administered them as part of my university training and I still feel a great sense of unease about it. Nonetheless I am not here to cast judgment as I know the need for assessments is far greater than the education department’s ability to provide and they do what they can with what they have.
Point is, educational assessments are not all created equal and while R8750 (my fee) may sound like an exorbitant amount, you can rest assured that every rand of that money is well spent if we can shed light on a potential learning barrier that could change the trajectory of your child’s life.
Hope this helps create some understanding.