Charleston, WV

City-specific neuro evaluation decision checklist

• Settle the route before the price. A district evaluation under IDEA is requested from the school and carries no charge to parents; a consultative examination for a Social Security claim is ordered and paid for by SSA; only a private evaluation produces a Charleston quote. They answer different questions, and one family often needs two of them.
• Name the question first — ADHD, autism, learning, memory, concussion or broader differential — and confirm the Charleston clinic routinely handles it.
• Confirm the evaluator with the West Virginia psychology board, and confirm who signs the report.
• Ask for hours, not a total: 96132 is the first hour and 96133 each hour after, so an hours estimate is the price.
• Say which report purpose you need — 504/IEP, workplace accommodations, treatment planning or medical documentation — before booking.
• Get intake-to-testing and testing-to-report as two separate numbers in writing.
• Hold a quote against the $361.00 service-weighted average Charleston practices billed for the first hour, not against a figure from a marketing page.

What Charleston and West Virginia clinicians actually billed

Source: CMS, Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners — by Provider and Service (city column) and by Geography and Service (state and national columns), calendar year 2024. City figures are by practice address on the claim, not catchment. Medicare fee-for-service only, so for a child evaluation these describe a different patient population. Not a quote.

Local vetting points

• Verify the evaluator with the West Virginia psychology board, not the clinic's own page. ASPPB (asppb.net) lists every state board if you cannot find it.
• Ask whether the clinician who signs the report is the one who administers the tests. Frequently it is not, and both are billed.
• Charleston neuro provider authority framework: compare evaluation scope, who is licensed to sign the report, hours billed for testing versus interpretation, report purpose and turnaround, and the reimbursement path.
• Work a symptom-to-evaluation-path decision tree before booking: name whether the question is ADHD, autism, a learning disability, memory change, concussion or a broader differential, then confirm the Charleston clinic routinely evaluates that question.

Typical cost ranges

• Charleston practices billed a service-weighted average of $361.00 for the first hour of a neuropsychological evaluation (code 96132) in 2024 — 14% above the national $317.32, against $259.11 across West Virginia. Source: CMS, Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners by Provider and Service, CY2024.
• Medicare allowed an average of $120.97 for that first hour in West Virginia. The submitted charge is a list price and the allowed amount is what one payer permits; a private-pay quote will match neither, but the gap between them is the range the conversation happens inside. Source: CMS, Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners by Geography and Service, CY2024.
• Each additional hour (code 96133) averaged $251.81 submitted in West Virginia, Medicare allowing $91.88 against $278.83 nationally. An evaluation has no single price because it is billed by the hour — so the number to ask a Charleston clinic for is hours, not a total. Source: CMS, Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners by Geography and Service, CY2024.
• These are Medicare fee-for-service figures, so the patients behind them are 65-plus and disabled beneficiaries. For a child evaluation they describe a different population than yours, and they remain the only per-city figures published for these codes. None of them is a quote.

Payment options

• Ask which of intake, administration (96136) and interpretation (96132/96133) a Charleston quote covers. They are separate codes and can be separate charges.
• Ask what happens to the fee if testing runs past the estimate, since additional hours bill under their own code.

Wait-time notes

• Measure the Charleston wait as three intervals — call to intake, intake to testing, testing to written report. Clinics usually quote only the first.
• 1 clinicians billing from Charleston addresses and 19 across West Virginia is the closest published proxy for capacity, and capacity is what sets the waitlist.

Availability notes

• Confirm the person you would see evaluates your age group. Adult and paediatric neuropsychology are different practices, and age-group fit is the usual reason a Charleston referral is redirected after intake.
• Ask which parts can be done remotely: some instruments have no validated remote administration, so a West Virginia telehealth intake does not imply telehealth testing.

Named resources or providers

• The public school district your child attends is the agency that runs an IDEA evaluation. Under 34 CFR 300.301(b) "either a parent of a child or a public agency may initiate a request for an initial evaluation", and under 34 CFR 300.39(b)(1) the special education that follows is provided "at no cost to the parents". Put the request in writing. Of the 44,694 school-age children West Virginia served, 4,064 were counted under autism and 8,692 under other health impairment — the two categories most parents arriving at this page are asking about. Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, EDPass IDEA Part B Child Count and Educational Environments, 2024-25.
• Do not assume a fixed clock. 34 CFR 300.301(c)(1) gives 60 days from parental consent "or if the State establishes a timeframe within which the evaluation must be conducted, within that timeframe", so ask the West Virginia district which applies there; for a child under three, 34 CFR 303.310 runs the Part C timeline at 45 days from referral.
• If the evaluation is evidence for a Social Security disability claim, SSA can purchase one. SSA POMS DI 22510.001: "SSA pays for any CE ordered for the claimant; and SSA does not pay for any medical examination arranged by the claimant or the claimant's appointed representative unless it is approved in advance." An examination you book yourself near Charleston is not that examination.
• The West Virginia psychology licensing board is authoritative for whether an evaluator is licensed and in good standing in West Virginia.
• ASPPB (asppb.net) maintains the directory of state psychology boards.
• CMS publishes the Charleston and West Virginia figures quoted here at data.cms.gov, under Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners.
• Academic medical centres and university training clinics near Charleston differ from private practice systematically on waitlist, fee and report purpose, so they are worth pricing separately rather than lumping in.
• We do not rank, recommend or endorse providers, and no provider on this site has paid for editorial placement.

Market-specific notes

• 1 clinicians billing from a Charleston practice address charged Medicare for a neuropsychological evaluation in 2024, across 38 beneficiaries. That count is by practice address on the claim, not by catchment, so clinicians serving the metro from a suburban office are not in it. Treat it as a floor, never as the number of providers available to you. Source: CMS, Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners by Provider and Service, CY2024.
• The largest single group among them by headcount was "Psychologist, Clinical" (1 of 1). That is a fact about who bills this code in Charleston, not a judgement about any of them — but it is worth knowing before you assume every Charleston listing for this service is a neuropsychologist. Source: CMS, Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners by Provider and Service, CY2024.
• Statewide, 19 West Virginia clinicians billed the code across 364 beneficiaries — 45th highest of the 53 states and territories CMS published a figure for. Where the binding constraint is the waitlist rather than the price, that is the most useful published capacity number. Source: CMS, Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners by Geography and Service, CY2024.
• Private-pay neuropsychologists near Charleston, school district evaluators and hospital developmental clinics billing only commercial plans are absent from every count on this page, and for child evaluation they are much of the market.
• 1 clinicians billed Medicare for this service from Charleston addresses in 2024; West Virginia public schools served 44,694 children aged 6 to 21 under IDEA Part B in the 2024-25 federal count, plus 3,933 aged 3 to 5. Those are two systems with two front doors, and a count of children served is not a count of evaluations — but it is the reason the school route is worth asking about before you price the private one. Source: U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs, EDPass IDEA Part B Child Count and Educational Environments, 2024-25.