TPC Journal-Vol 9- Issue 4-FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 9, Issue 4 313 appropriate for this study because of the positionality of the researchers. The research team consisted of two LPCs and one LMFT who have denied services or had to refer clients because of the current Medicare mental health policy and have engaged in prior research and advocacy related to the professional and clinical implications of the current Medicare mental health policy. We selected IPA for this study because of the shared experience between the researchers and participants as Medicare- ineligible providers. A distinguishing feature of IPA, a variation of hermeneutic phenomenology, is the acknowledgment of a double-interpretative, analytical process: The researchers make sense of how the participants make sense of a shared phenomenon (Smith et al., 2009). Participants Participants were screened based on the inclusion criteria of having direct experience with turning away or referring Medicare beneficiaries and holding a mental health license as an LPC. Because states grant licenses to health care providers, we limited participation to LPCs who were practicing in a specific state in the Mid-Atlantic region. This allowed for consistency in licensure requirements, training provided, and current scope of practice across all participants. The nine participants interviewed all held the highest professional counseling license in this state, which allows these individuals to practice independent of supervision after completing 4,000 hours of supervised training. Post-license experience ranged from 6 months to 17 years, and participants practiced in both rural and non-rural settings. Pseudonyms were assigned by the research team (see Table 1 for participant information). Table 1 Participant Information Participant License Type Rural Status a Years of Licensed Experience Michelle LPC Rural 4 years Cecelia LPC Non-rural 5 years Mary LPC Non-rural 17 years Roger LPC Non-rural 2 years Aubrey LPC Rural 4 years Donna LPC Rural 4 years April LPC Non-rural 0.5 years Robert LPC/LMFT Non-rural 22 years Brandon LPC Rural 5 years a The table displays rural status as designated by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Health Resources and Services Administration (2016) according to the practice location of the participant. Non-rural includes metropolitan and micropolitan areas. Rural indicates any locality that is neither metropolitan or micropolitan. Most participants were identified because of having completed a national survey of mental health providers unable to serve Medicare beneficiaries (Fullen et al., in press-a). Participants in the national survey were provided with a question in which they were able to indicate their openness to participating in follow-up individual interviews regarding their experiences with turning away clients as a result of Medicare policy. Two additional participants had not completed the national survey but were identified