Opinions please - charged DNA fee for a session on BH Mon

[FeeTie]

Hi all,
Just hoping for some perspective and opinions on a situation I’ve recently dealt with.

I see a counsellor each Monday and didn’t attend this Monday as it was a bank holiday.
Today I get an invoice I’ve been charged the full amount for not attending. (This is the first misses appt.)
However, nothing was discussed in the previous session about attending next week even though it’s a BH, nothing in t&c about working BH. They also handed me a
piece of paper telling me her next holiday dated - nothing mentioned about bank holidays in the previous season.

I received a text message on Monday asking if I was ok to attend. I responded that I assumed as it was a bank holiday that they wouldn’t be working.
The therapist replied, ‘that’s what I thought, see you next week’. No mention of a DNA fee or their expectation of seeing me.

So the invoice arrived today and I paid in full. I also replied saying that I would not be attending any further sessions.

A side point is that I had to do a lot of work to enable me to attend an appt mid afternoon on a Monday, like skip lunches at work to make up the time to enable me to actually attend - it’s not like it’s a rare evening appt! (Just venting here - sorry!)

Just wondering how would you have handled it? Also, they’ve asked for feedback as to why I’ve cancelled. Not sure I will reply.

Thanks for reading! Xx

It just sounds like a miscommunication to me. I wouldn't have paid. I'd have contacted them and explained, like you have here, and it would have been fine. No need to cancel future sessions.

This is really annoying. Unfortunately a lot of therapists aren’t very good at the business side of things and issues like this seem pretty common. I would end it too.