My friend is using Better Help and loves it, she has an amazing therapist that she adores who doesn’t live in our state so she never would have found them outside of the app. She reports similar, the pros far out weigh the cons for her. I like seeing my therapist in person, but schedules are hard to work around…

I work for Talkspace - and decided to quit a few months ago. They do collect data. They also run an algorithm in the back of the app to try to diagnose clients (Which is inaccurate btw). And they are doing something with data (marketinb based) based on the assessment they’re running. And lastly - they shaft…

I wouldn’t recommend it for someone who was in need of medication, for obvious reasons, or someone who was totally undiagnosed or in the midst of a severe psychiatric crisis of some kind. But I had seen a regional shrink through my job, who had diagnosed my general issue, but he was literally only in town once every…

Nah, fuck that noise. A “serial entrepreneur?” Nah, fuck that noise. He’s in it for the revenue/profit, not patient care.

There definitely are. Many insurers now along with employers offer these telehealth companies as part of your insurance plan, sometimes you’ll even see them in the insurers doctor search when your looking for a clinician. But if you research any of these companies I mention, you’ll see they reference access to…

This is sooooo good to hear! I’m really glad it’s helping you (and your wife, too, since your mental health affects her life, too). I had asked in another comment whether this was helping you, and it sounds like a really perfect situation. I mean even if you were in the US, it would be hard enough to find a therapist…

Well, since everyone is telling their horror stories, I guess I’ll offer up my non-horror story. I have actually used Pride Counseling for around six months now. I was dealing with pretty severe depression and anxiety, and I knew that I needed help, but I live in France, and frankly, the prospect of trying to seek out…

You’ve likely heard it before, but insurance companies generally pay therapists - and other medical professionals - far less than what it would take to keep a private practice in business. There are all kinds of unfair caps or maximum reimbursement amounts that would make it impossible for them to make a living…

The main problem is the insurance! Each insurance company makes the doctor/office group jump through multiple flaming paperwork hoops just to be considered by said company, and then for every single patient they have to restart the paperwork all over again. Then the company does a forms adjustment, or the patient’s…

“TL;DR— this shit is hard enough to talk about without also worrying about: 1). whether all your info is totally private, 2.) that you’re gonna have to start all over again with someone else soon, or 3.) figuring out how in the hell you’re gonna pay for it.”

This is so good to know! Thank you for sharing an insider’s perspective.

It gets me how many therapists just decide *not to take insurance.* Like do you care about your patients? Apparently it’s a bitch for therapists to work with, but like...is this about you or your patients? Augh.

thank you for this work. when companies brush off the user concerns that journalists raise, as happened here, it feels like they’re giving me the brush-off. I have even less interest in trying this app now. it looks like their business model depends on skating around privacy issues that are important to many people.

This is definitely concerning, particularly when there are more established telehealth companies out there that have been offering virtual therapy for some time now. Some of the biggest Teladoc (I worked there for a few years), MDLive, American Well, Dr. On Demand have all been involved in offering online therapists…

Thank you for this! I’m currently between therapists, since my former therapist moved away, and we’ve also been dealing with a shortage of mental health providers in my area. I’m also unable to leave home most of the time, and it’s difficult keeping regular appointments because of my disability mobility issues and the…

I tried telemedicine two years ago for birth control and it was a disaster. The “nurse” dispensing advice about the debilitating side effects I was suffering was not qualified to do so regardless of what degrees they hold. (They either didn’t know the difference between combo and progestin-only pills or didn’t check…

Agree. I mean, people are finally acknowledging the problem. Doesn’t mean that Natalie Portman isn’t a victim of the system as well. She is 39, and although she was a child star, I doubt she was able to make real choices about who she worked with for a very long time. I mean, her production company  (Handsomecharlie)…

Natalie’s production company has released a grand total of something like eight films, the last of them three years ago. I don’t think it’s wrong to ask why she isn’t working with more female directors, given that it’s important to her, but I also don’t think it’s crazy that ... this might just be something that she’s…

She only signed on to _{Thor 2} because Patty Jenkins was set to direct, only for Marvel to can Jenkins. She then refused to do Thor 3.

Exactly, also look at the production issues with Jane Got a Gun(produced by her company), which originally was to be directed by a female director, and see the difficulty that took to get off the ground. Natalie is not the issue here.