10/26/2025
We hear you! Providing high quality care is associated with costs. Most clinicians are in this for their passion, not their pocketbook but let’s look at this another way. Did you know the average annual cost of mental health treatment for a single person can range from $1,080 to $10,836, depending on the severity and type of care needed? Let’s look at the mid range of $5,958. The average annual cost of missed work due to mental illness for a single person is around $4,783. This is based on the cost of days lost per employee, with mental distress leading to significantly more days off compared to those without such distress. So a ballpark average is about $6,000 spent on mental health and about $5,000 lost income due to mental health related issues, totally about $11,000/year.
*Based on average US income & any mental health disorder.
The average cost of a ketamine session nationally is about $600/session. Let’s start in January with a series of 6 sessions and do one session a month for maintenance. In January you’d spend $3600 to complete a standard series of 6. If you go for maintenance you’d spend an additional $600 a month for 11 more months totalling $6600. So for the year you would spend $10,200. If you did not miss work because ketamine helped you to feel better and you used less of your out of pocket for mental health you would SAVE $800 a year in this scenario, and this is just the dollar amount! This does not explore the time saved from trialing another medication, time spent inpatient, or intensive outpatient or emergency room costs. Overall for some people spending money on ketamine is truly an investment in their wellbeing that SAVES them time and money in the long term.
