I Applied to be a BetterHelp Therapist. Here’s What Happened

I Applied to be a BetterHelp Therapist. Here’s What Happened

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I hadn’t worked with BetterHelp before, but many of you have asked me whether it’s worth it to offer therapy through BetterHelp as a way to supplement your income while you build your private practice.

So, I thought it would be a great idea to apply to be a provider through BetterHelp in order to share my experience in a video. Stay tuned to hear how it went!

This video is geared for therapists of all kinds, including psychologists, MFTs, LPCCs, social workers, and others in the clinical counseling field.

Welcome to Private Practice Skills! I’m Dr. Marie Fang, psychologist in private practice. I post videos offering tools I learned the hard way about starting and growing private practice so that you don’t have to.

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This video is not intended as professional or legal advice. Be sure to seek the services of a professional if you are in need of them.

BetterHelp claims that it is the world’s largest online counseling platform
https://www.betterhelp.com/about/

So I applied to be a BetterHelp therapist.

The application process was rather thorough, and it seemed like they made a clear effort to verify that every applicant is a licensed therapist.

While waiting to hear back after submitting my application, I did a little bit of digging into how the BetterHelp platform works. And from what I found, I concluded that I wouldn’t be comfortable offering services through the platform.

A mosey into their FAQ page says that BetterHelp is “not capable of substituting for traditional face-to-face therapy in every case.” and to “Please note that your provider won't be able to make any official diagnosis, to fulfill any court order or prescribe medication.” https://www.betterhelp.com/faq/

Furthermore, on their terms and conditions page, they are careful to refer to the services offered as “counselor services” rather than “counseling” or “therapy.”

When I saw this, I started to suspect that possibly the services offered through BetterHelp are not legally considered therapy.

Furthermore, I wondered then whether our professional liability insurance would cover “counselor services” rendered through BetterHelp. I spent an hour scouring google for an answer. And I couldn’t find the answer.

In my googling, I did find some really interesting Subreddit threads. Of course, they simply reflect the opinions of those writing in the forum, but they are illuminating:
https://www.reddit.com/r/psychotherapy/comments/9luu1o/thoughts_on_better_help_and_online_counseling_in/

https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/9o1ulp/whats_up_with_better_help/

To make matters complicated, there is some evidence that treatment through BetterHelp is effective at improving mental health outcomes. And I absolutely believe this is true - I don’t want to negate people’s very real positive experiences on the platform. I just believe it isn’t clear whether the platform itself is being run in a way that upholds the ethical and legal standards of therapy that we’re bound to as licensed professionals in the mental health field.
https://dy7glz37jgl0b.cloudfront.net/brand/betterhelp/press-kit/Study_of_BetterHelp_eCounseling.pdf

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