The rise of platforms like Talkspace and BetterHelp bring up this question.
And it brings up the reason I started a private practice and decided never to be contracted with insurance companies.
SIDE NOTE: At One Heart Counseling Center, we do check your out of network benefits and will file insurance claims on your behalf so you don’t have to deal with figuring out how to submit claims on your own. So it feels like we take insurance if you get reimbursement for sessions through your PPO plan.
We are specifically an out of network practice because we feel the quality of your therapy matters now and later.
What I mean by that is: if you’re coming to therapy, it’s because of something REALLY important, your marriage, your relationship, your family, your quality of life, your child and we don’t want to waste your time or resources, we want to make sure you get the right help right now.
And, we also feel like it’s important for the future. Let’s say you go to therapy and it doesn’t help. Or you have a terrible experience. Obviously, it feels bad to try to get help and not get it, but the chances you’ll try therapy again are lower. That means the negative experience is reducing your (or your kids’ or your partners’) access to a valuable resource in the future. We take that really seriously. We talk about this with kids here and with teens here.
So, the quality of your experience and the help you get is really important. When you work with a therapist through an online platform, there are some factors that no one who isn’t a therapist knows about or will tell you about.
Obviously, it’s attractive that the therapy can be so convenient location wise (since it’s online), technology wise (as long as you feel comfortable with the tech!) and financially (because often they are contracted with insurance companies).
But there is no guarantee you will work with a therapist that is skilled and/or a match for you. Match? Yes, the match between you and your therapist doesn’t have to do with whether they have experience working with anxiety, let’s say. If you’ve been on dating apps, you know that someone can seem like such a match on paper and in photos and then you talk on the phone or meet for a date and it’s NOT. We talk more about the match here. At One Heart, when you reach out to us, I’ll match you with a therapist and you have a chat to see if it’s a match.. If it’s not, we want to help you find the right fit. We feel like that’s our responsibility to the profession. We care more about your experience in therapy for now and for the future than winning your business right now.
Here’s some other things about using your insurance and the online platforms that no one will tell you about:
One: Sometimes the requirements of the insurance companies (which we would have to comply with if we were contracted with insurance companies) interfere with your care. You might be wondering…wait? Insurance companies interfere with care? YES.
First, they require information about your treatment. And they use that information to determine what they’re going to pay for. That means they might limit sessions. So, you could be happily paying your co-pay and then all of the sudden they determine that you don’t meet criteria and now you’re stuck with paying out of pocket (a fee you didn’t budget or agree on when therapy started). Or you might have to switch therapists? Another therapist can totally help you, but the relatinoship with your current therapist can’t be transferred. After decades of doing this work, we’ve found that the relationship is actually the most important part in the effectiveness of therapy. Also, we simply don’t know how insurance companies do or will use that information.
TWO: the therapist or practice who is contracted with your insurance company has to spend time writing letters, doing paperwork, and getting on phone calls with your insurance company. And they need to see A LOT of clients to make a living. Which means the therapist that ends up sitting across from you or on a video call is most likely exhausted.
Finally, the credentialing required for a therapist to contract with insurance companies doesn’t require any kind of assessment of the quality of care that therapist provides. Just because a therapist is credentialed by an insurance company doesn’t mean they are good at their job. It means they can jump through paperwork hoops.
Given all of this, consider what’s most important to you. If you wouldn’t be able to see a therapist if it isn’t just the co-pay, go for the online platform. Just realize that if your therapist is exhausted or seems impatient… IT’S NOT because you’re boring or annoying. It’s because they’re helping a lot of people.
If you can pay out of pocket, but it would be nice to pay just a co-pay, consider this carefully. This is your quality of life, the quality of your relationships, the quality of your child’s life. How important is that to you? Invest accordingly. It will be more expensive per session, but it might be the place where it’s better to invest time in finding the right therapist. This will actually save you money, time, energy in the long run.
Contact us, we’d love to connect and see if one of our therapists is a match for you. If not, we’ll help you find the right therapist.
