Heart and Solutions, LLC hires providers from many backgrounds and experiences, and we pride ourselves on our values of inclusion and empathy. We aim to provide a welcoming, affirming, and supportive environment for all of our clients – and understand that your identities and communities may impact your needs in therapy or BHIS. Many of our providers are passionate about providing community-specific and identity-affirming services. With a wide range of background expertise and specialities, we cannot guarantee all of our providers will be experts in every issue. If you have any specific requests for your provider match, including a specific provider or considerations for your race, culture, gender, sexuality, religion, veteran status, or any background that is important to supporting you, please include that information in your intake packet.

Yes! Heart and Solutions, LLC is committed to supporting our LGBTQ+ clients and their families through therapy and BHIS. Our team seeks to ensure everyone can access therapy and behavioral health support in an inclusive, supportive environment. If your or your family have specific needs for us to consider in providing inclusive care, please indicate in your intake or let your provider know.

As an agency committed to inclusion, we are proud to work with transgender clients and their families in BHIS, individual therapy, couple’s therapy, and family therapy settings. We can see clients ages 4-18 in BHIS and all ages in therapy. You can expect us to use your chosen name and pronouns in our work with you, with limited exceptions to legal and billing documentation which require use of legal name and sex for verification purposes. Insurance companies dictate their own policies about usage of names and gender markers. Please be advised that your bills may show your legal name and sex marker per insurance policies. In your intake paperwork, you can indicate a chosen name, pronouns, and gender alongside your legal name and sex. If your name, pronouns, or gender markers change over the course of working with us, we can update them at any time in Valant, our electronic health record.

Our therapists can provide assessments for letters of support, or WPATH letters, for transgender clients interested in medical transition. We also offer brief assessments for gender dysphoria for the purpose of providing a secondary letter of support to supplement a letter from your primary therapist. For additional information about inclusive medical providers in Iowa, see One Iowa’s Health and Wellness guide here: https://oneiowa.org/resources/health-wellness/

At each Heart and Solutions assessment, we inquire about spiritual and cultural factors that we should be aware of so that we can best support you and your family.  We respect each individual’s spiritual and religious beliefs.  We recognize that religion and spirituality can be very different for each individual person even within the same family.  Our mental health and behavioral health counselors hold a wide variety of personal spiritual and religious beliefs.  You can rest assured that our counselors are trained and prepared not to let their own beliefs impact their support of your beliefs.  Our counselors follow an ask and support model and are careful to provide support and intervention in keeping with the religious or spiritual values that you have shared with us.

• • Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield
  • Most out of state Blue Cross Blue Shield plans
  • United Healthcare
  • Iowa Medicaid
  • Amerigroup
  • Iowa Total Care
  • Medicare (in some locations or via telehealth)
  • Medica
  • Crime Victims Compensation Funding
  • Health Partners (some plans require a preauthorization from Health Partners
  • Private Pay
  • Intern appointments if you do not have insurance coverage we can accept.

Please be advised that while we can verify your insurance eligibility and our network status with your insurance company at the time of the referral, we are unable to verify your specific plan benefits and out of pocket costs with your insurance carrier. It is your responsibility to verify your own benefits and out of pocket costs with your insurance carrier prior to services being rendered. To do so, please call the number on the back of your insurance card prior to your first session.

Therapy at Heart and Solutions is, at its core, personal centered and strength based.  As a strength-based counseling agency, our team is well practiced at seeking, identifying, highlighting and building on the strengths of our clients and their families.  Because we are person-centered as our base, we believe that every client has their own healing solutions within them.  To bring these internal healing solutions to the surface, our team provides the necessary components of empathy, validation and unconditional positive regard.  We believe that these three components are the sunlight, water, and soil to a seed’s ability to sprout, bloom and thrive.  Therapy is a safe space with a supportive counselor who is on your side and wants to support you in your individualized journey of healing and growth!  Therapy does not make you whole or “fix,” you, it provides the space and opportunity for you to become the beautiful version of yourself that you were always meant to be.

Not even the greatest writers and speakers were born with communication skills.  The best negotiator on the planet was born with no conflict resolution skills at all and no human has ever been born knowing how to regulate their emotions or choose productive behaviors.

At Heart and Solutions, we believe that none of us are born with the anger management, emotional identification and expression, conflict resolution, listening, following directions, aggression reduction skills expected of children and adults.

The only way that any human gets competent at any of these skills is through role modeling and opportunity to practice and succeed at the skill.  This is where BHIS is beneficial and often necessary.  If a child is having difficulty following directions at school, we do not believe this is a “bad,” or “naughty,” child.  We believe that this is a child getting their needs met through less productive techniques.  We believe that given the role modeling, opportunities to practice and succeed at the skill, any child is able to build this skill and so many others necessary for success as an adult.

BHIS counselors can meet with children ages 4-18 and their families in-home, at school or in the office.  We provide opportunities to practice and build these skills in the form of games, art activities and service projects.  Our BHIS counselors utilize the 7 Cs of Resilience to build these skills in the children we support.

Unfortunately, BHIS services will not start immediately after your assessment has been completed. BHIS services do require prior authorization from most insurance companies so we have to wait until this service is approved prior to proceeding with scheduling BHIS sessions. 

If BHIS is a cast for a broken leg, therapy is an antibiotic for any internal infection resulting from the injury.  Many of the children and families that we support utilize both BHIS and therapy to build their actionable skills and their mental health skills in unison.  

If therapy is the “why,” of how change happens, BHIS is the “how.”  BHIS targets the visible, audio changes that others may observe.  For example, if a child is angry and kicks the dog, BHIS would focus on kicking a pillow or singing a song instead of kicking the dog.  Therapy would focus on helping the child to identify the emotions they are feeling, think through any irrational thoughts that may have led to kicking the dog, and process out their options internally prior to taking action.  
Consistent therapy services are a requirement for most MCO BHIS authorizations because working on our behavioral health and our mental health are equally important to our success and together they are far more effective than apart.

Telehealth is a service available for both therapy and for BHIS.  Telehealth allows for confidential, convenient and social distanced counseling services.  At Heart and Solutions, we utilize Doxy.me, a HIPAA compliant video conferencing service to provide counseling services via video call.  Some clients prefer to conduct telehealth counseling over the phone with no video conferencing component.  This method is extremely effective as well.  Telehealth removes barriers such as transportation, childcare, privacy concerns, time to and from appointments.  Many clients utilize their lunch breaks to invest in their mental health and are able to benefit from weekly therapy sessions without missing any work or family time.  Many schools allow for counseling through telehealth for their students as this allows for the student to benefit from their mental health or behavioral health counseling in a way that limits how much school the student misses.  Telehealth can be combined with face-to-face counseling for convenience and social distancing while still maintaining the benefits of meeting in-person with your counselor.

For clients who are unable to access our offices or prefer to have services from their own home, Heart and Solutions is proud to be able to offer online therapy services. Our online therapy services are conducted by licensed mental health providers using a confidential online video platform. This ensures that clients are able to engage in a variety of therapeutic interventions and receive ethical care while working towards their therapeutic goals. Telehealth services are available for all of our clients and are as effective as in person services. Additionally, for clients who do not have access to an internet based service, therapy may be provided over the phone.  Please note that all clients must reside in Iowa, even if utilizing telehealth services. 

Telehealth BHIS services are available for children, ages 4-19 years old, and their families with Medicaid insurance. To begin telehealth BHIS services, one of our licensed mental health therapists would conduct an assessment with you and your child via phone or video call. Once this is completed, one of our BHIS Providers would connect with you to provide weekly BHIS sessions on a video call from their office to your home! During BHIS, our providers will work with your child on different behavioral skills, such as anger management, self-esteem, listening and following directions, impulse control, conflict resolutions, etc, all while using games, crafts and activities.

Whether you are beginning therapy or BHIS, or both at Heart and Solutions, your first appointment at Heart and Solutions will be a diagnostic assessment.  This is a systemized way for you and your family to express your goals and needs for counseling and to work with the counselor to create a customized plan of action for counseling.  Your counselor will ask you questions during this assessment about what symptoms or challenges you are facing, what success would mean to you and questions about your background and support.

For BHIS services, an assessment called a reauthorization is scheduled for every 6 months of services.  This assessment is an insurance requirement that we submit to the insurance company when requesting a new preauthorization for BHIS services.

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In order to become a client with our providers you will need to complete our online referral form which is located on our website under Get Started. In order to complete this form, you will need the following information:

• Full legal name
• Date of birth of the client
• Address
• Phone number
• Email address
• Social security number of the client and the guarantor
• Insurance information for the client
• Full legal name and address of the primary insured

Once we receive your completed referral you will be entered in our system as a new client and then referred to our clinical directors to be assigned a therapist unless you’ve specifically indicated on your referral form who you would like to see. Once a therapist is assigned they have 3-4 business days to make their first scheduling attempt with you. We do not guarantee that our providers will be available at the time of your referral. Provider caseloads do change on a daily basis and they do their own scheduling, which means they may not have availability on or at the set days/times client’s may need. When providers are unable to accommodate new referrals scheduling needs those referrals are placed on our waiting list for the next available provider or for the specific provider that has been requested. The estimated wait time is unknown as it is dependent upon the provider’s caseload. If you must be placed on a waiting list, you will be notified by our administrative team either by phone or email.

You can also call us at (800) 531-4236. Our friendly administrative team is happy to answer any question you might have and get you on the road toward reaching your goals!

Heart and Solutions does not currently accept walk-ins; we are by appointment only. 

At Heart and Solutions, your confidentiality is of the utmost importance.  All of our billing and communication software is fully encrypted and HIPAA compliant.  We will never confirm or deny that we are working with you or with a member of your family without your expressed written consent.  We place extreme importance and focus on the protection of your privacy. 

At Heart and Solutions, we offer a wide variety of services for all ages and family members.  Our offices are staffed with professional counselors specializing in a variety of age groups.  Many of our wonderful clients start with one family member and expand the support out to the rest of the family.  

For example: The school may refer a child or adolescent for our in-home behavioral health counseling services and for our in-school, in-office or to participate in telehealth (by phone or computer).  While we are working with the family, we may find that mom, dad, guardian, foster parent, grandma, grandpa, step mom, step dad or siblings are facing challenges of their own and can benefit from added support.  A family may come in to the office all at one time and each member of the family meet with their own individual counselor in the office.  This minimizes the amount of time that a family needs to dedicate to counseling as everyone may have their own individual sessions in the same hour.

Sometimes one family member wishes to engage in therapy and their family is hesitant to try it. In these situations, we recommend showing your family member the photo, bio and video of the therapist or counselor you will be meeting with as well as photos of the office that they will be visiting. Often motivation to attend counseling sessions can be initiated by asking what we call “the miracle question.” This question: “If you woke up tomorrow morning and by a miracle, your life was exactly the way you would want it, what would be different?” The answer to this question can be set as a goal for counseling which can be extremely motivating. Explaining that the first meeting is an assessment and the following 3-5 sessions are focused on building rapport and really just getting to know the counselor and feel comfortable can be helpful as well. We ask anyone with hesitation to try counseling for 4 sessions before deciding if it is right for them. We find that most people, with hesitation, find therapy or behavioral health counseling beneficial and comfortable within 3-5 sessions.

At Heart and Solutions, all of our processes and procedures are designed around the professional counseling codes of ethics set forth by the American Counseling Association (ACA), the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) and the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapists (AAMFT). All of our therapists are BHIS counselors are committed to uploading these codes of ethics and protecting your right to fair, considerate, ethical treatment without discrimination.