Adult ADHD assessment in Boulder County

First, do you actually need a full evaluation?

Not always. It depends entirely on what you want to do with it.

You probably do need a formal evaluation if you want workplace accommodations under the ADA, testing accommodations for a licensing or graduate exam, academic accommodations at a university, or documentation for Vocational Rehabilitation. Those systems want a report, and they want it from a psychologist.

You probably do not need a full neuropsychological battery if what you want is to understand yourself better, to start therapy, or to have a first conversation about medication. Many prescribers can evaluate and diagnose ADHD in an appointment or two without a $2,500 report, though policies vary and some require testing first.

And you need nothing at all to start therapy with most private-pay therapists, including me. Self-identification is enough.

The honest version: a full evaluation buys you a document. If you do not need the document, you may be buying a very expensive confirmation of something you already know. That is a legitimate thing to want. It is worth knowing that is what you are buying.

The three routes

A full psychological or neuropsychological evaluation. Four to six hours of testing with a licensed psychologist, plus a written report and a feedback session. Roughly $2,100 to $3,900 out of pocket in Boulder County, with an important exception below: some Boulder County practices bill insurance for it, including Medicaid. This route is what accommodations systems want.

A psychiatric or prescriber evaluation. A psychiatrist, psychiatric nurse practitioner, or in some cases your primary care doctor. Usually one to three appointments, often billable to insurance. This can get you to a diagnosis and a medication conversation without the full battery, but some practices require testing before they will prescribe stimulants. Ask that on the phone before you book.

Nothing formal. Start therapy, read, talk to people, work out whether the frame fits. Costs you the therapy and nothing else. Gets you no document.

Start here if you have insurance

Community Neuropsychology
275 Century Circle, Suite 203, Louisville, CO 80027. (720) 508-3518

Two practices in Boulder County bill insurance for this rather than asking you to pay two to four thousand dollars up front. This is the one that publishes its panel in detail. Their payments page lists credentialing with Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser Permanente, Medicare, Medicaid, Rocky Mountain Health Plans, Pinnacol Assurance, and TriWest/TriCare. Their billing team verifies benefits before your appointment, and they take check or card for whatever insurance does not cover.

The practice is adults only, and the evaluating psychologists include several who are board certified in clinical neuropsychology.

Four things to know before you call, because they are real gates and nobody mentions them until you are already invested:

• You need a referral from a treating provider, such as a neurologist, neurosurgeon, psychiatrist, or primary care physician. You cannot self-refer. If you do not have a doctor you see regularly, that is the first phone call, not this one.
• The wait is about three months on average. They keep an active waitlist and call people in order when there is a cancellation, so ask to be on it.
• They do not evaluate primary autism. Their published scope excludes autism spectrum evaluations. If autism is your actual question, or if it is genuinely both, go to one of the private-pay providers below who assess for both.
• They do not evaluate during active substance use, and their published preparation instructions ask you to stop using marijuana for the four weeks before your appointment. In Colorado that is worth planning around rather than discovering at intake.

If you have insurance, no autism question, a doctor who can refer you, and three months, this is very likely the cheapest route to a real report that exists in this county.

Amavi Integrative Mental Wellness

6897 Paiute Ave, Suite 5, Niwot, CO 80503. (303) 652-4196

Niwot is in Boulder County. Amavi is an adult psychiatry and psychotherapy practice, and their site describes neuropsychological testing as a tool for evaluating ADHD, so testing and a prescriber sit under one roof. They list themselves as in network with Medicare, Medicaid, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna, Kaiser Permanente, Cigna, Humana, Optum and Beacon.

They do not publish what testing costs or how long it takes. Ask two things on the phone: whether testing specifically is billable under your plan, and whether the report will be the kind an accommodations office accepts.

Private pay options

Four places that publish enough detail to compare. This is not a ranking or a recommendation.

CU PATH, University of Colorado Boulder

Muenzinger Psychology Building, 1905 Colorado Avenue, Boulder 80309. $2,100, with a $200 non-refundable deposit to join the waiting list, applied to the total cost. Payment plans available. No insurance. Ages 16 and up, open to community members and not just students. This is a training clinic. Assessments are done by clinical psychology graduate students under licensed psychologist supervision. That is why it is the cheapest published self-pay option in the county, and it is also why there is a waiting list.

Chris Gioielli, PsyD

Louisville, CO. $2,750 for an adult ADHD assessment. Private pay, no insurance. Free consultation first. Includes clinical interview and developmental history, cognitive and executive functioning measures, rating scales, a written report, and a feedback session.

Collegiate Coaching Services, Nicole Hipp, PsyD

3000 Center Green Drive, Suite 210, Boulder 80301. Adult ADHD and autism assessment, which matters if the autism question is part of yours. Five to six hours in person. Private pay, with sliding scale available on request. Price is not published, so you will have to ask. Approved vendor for Colorado’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, which matters if DVR is funding your evaluation. Appointments typically within seven to fourteen days of contact, with feedback and the final report two to three weeks after testing. That is the fastest published turnaround of any option here.

Atlas Psychology

1265 Yellow Pine, Boulder 80304. Comprehensive psychological and neuropsychological evaluations priced up to $3,900, adjusted by scope. Out of network, with superbills for possible reimbursement. Check your out-of-network benefits before assuming that helps.

Two more Boulder practices worth a call

Both assess ADHD and autism in adults, and both are in Boulder itself. Neither publishes fees or an insurance list, so you will have to ask. They are here because a shorter wait is sometimes worth a phone call.

Horizon Neuropsychological Services

6260 Lookout Rd, Suite 120, Boulder, CO 80301. (720) 242-7533

Comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations for adults and older adults. Their adult page lists ADHD and autism together under neurodevelopmental disorders, alongside brain injury, cognitive decline, anxiety and depression. Fees and insurance are not published.

NeuroWorks

255 Canyon Boulevard, Boulder, CO 80302. (303) 945-5311

Neuropsychological evaluations covering ADHD, autism, learning disorders and acquired brain injury. Dr. Sarka Brown provides comprehensive neuropsychological assessments to adults. Fees and insurance are not published.

Which one fits your situation

• You have insurance, including Medicaid, can wait three months, and autism is not part of the question. Community Neuropsychology. Get the referral first.
• Autism is part of the question. Collegiate Coaching Services. Community Neuropsychology explicitly does not do it.
• You need it fast. Collegiate Coaching Services has the shortest published wait.
• You are paying cash and the number is the constraint. CU PATH, and get on the list while you decide.
• Vocational Rehabilitation is funding it. Collegiate Coaching Services is an approved vendor.
• You have strong out-of-network benefits. Atlas Psychology, after you call your plan.
• You want testing and a prescriber in one place, on insurance. Amavi, in Niwot.
• Nothing above fits, or you want more options. Horizon and NeuroWorks, both in Boulder. Call and ask what they charge.

If cost is still the barrier

It is a real barrier and pretending otherwise helps nobody.

Check insurance first, properly. Call the number on your card and use the words “neuropsychological testing” and “psychological testing.” People write off insurance based on a vague answer from a website. One phone call gets you a real one.

Ask about sliding scale directly and specifically. Several of these providers have one and do not advertise it.

If you are working or trying to work and ADHD is part of what is in the way, Colorado’s Division of Vocational Rehabilitation may fund an evaluation. That is what it is for.

Get on the CU PATH waitlist while you decide. The deposit is $200 and the list is long. If something better opens up you have lost the deposit, not the evaluation.

For therapy while you sort this out, Boulder County has low-cost options that require none of this. Open Path Collective is a national nonprofit that connects people with therapists at $40 to $70 a session after a one-time $65 membership fee. Naropa Community Counseling has self-pay rates starting at $60 and accepts Medicaid. The Raimy Clinic at CU offers reduced rates based on ability to pay. Clinica Family Health and Wellness takes insurance, Medicaid and Medicare, has a sliding scale, and runs the walk-in crisis center in Louisville. More options are on my crisis and community resources page.

What a full evaluation actually involves

Expect a clinical interview about your history going back to childhood, standardized cognitive and attention testing, self-report and often collateral rating scales from someone who knows you well, a review of any old school or medical records you can dig up, then a written report and a session to go through it.

Bring what you have. Report cards, old evaluations, anything a parent kept. Childhood evidence is genuinely useful, because the diagnostic criteria require symptoms to have been present before age twelve and most adults cannot reconstruct that from memory alone.

Plan for it to be tiring. Four to six hours of sustained attention testing is a strange thing to ask of someone who came in because sustained attention is hard.

What I do and don’t do

I do not assess, diagnose for accommodation purposes, or prescribe.

What I do is work with adults who are ADHD, autistic, or wondering, on what it actually costs them day to day: the burnout, the shame, the systems that keep collapsing, the years of being told they were the problem. Some of my clients have a formal diagnosis. Plenty do not, and never get one.

If you want to talk through whether an evaluation is worth it in your situation, that is a reasonable thing to bring to a free consultation. I am not going to sell you a course of therapy you do not want.