That was my experience in fact. Therapists would participate in-network while young and inexperienced but would move out of network once they had more experience, a specialization, or a more established practice.
What that meant was if you had advanced needs you ended up paying out of pocket a lot.
> For example, the max paid for a therapy visit might be $120 while the providers typically charge $160-180/session.
These seem tightly (and unsurprisingly) linked. If you were competent at your job and had a choice to bill $120/hr or $160/hr, which would you choose?
If you weren’t competent, having a steady stream of $120/hr customers pipelined to you would be mighty convenient as well.