Telehealth

The choice to be exclusively tele-health was intentional. Often clients report barriers, concerns, or hesitations when considering using telehealth as a therapy office. As such, some of the reasons why telehealth may be a good fit for you, could include:

• Transportation (including access, costs for transit and/or parking, vehicle dependability)

• Caregiver responsibilities (including pets, eldercare, childcare, and partner care)

• Accessibility (including physical limitations, mental health limitations)

• Convenience (available when you are available—even during lunch hour)

• Weather (weather is either unpredictable or epic—who wants to commute)

• Work/Life balance (asking for time off work is a drag)
  

• Comfort (who doesn’t want to have therapy in slippers and a dog in our lap)

• Privacy (no waiting room encounters)

• Safety (ideal for victims of intimate partner violence or other safety concerns)

Telehealth goes by many names, including e-therapy, virtual therapy, and/or remote therapy. Often clients report barriers, concerns, or hesitations when considering using telehealth as a therapy office. By being a telehealth only practice, all services are conducted via a HIPAA compliant platform similar to Skype or FaceTime.

• Spoken Balance offers telehealth therapy to meet the modern needs of today. Spoken Balance is committed to providing exceptional care in whatever capacity is most comfortable for clients. More and more, feedback was received from clients that time was tight and they had to cancel for various reasons — marathon training, moving, weather, working late. Whatever reason was perfectly valid but interfered with treatment… and clients knew it. Hence, shifting the therapy office to their home made therapy portable, accessible, confidential, and comfortable. In turn, clients often report feeling more at ease, less frazzled/stressed, and more apt to open up and, in turn, therapy is more effective.

• Spoken Balance can recruit the best talent. Lots of therapists may be the best fit but the commute, caretaking responsibilities, schooling, scheduling conflicts — or more — may be barriers to pursuing Spoken Balance as a place of employment. To be a diverse and accessible practice, Spoken Balance wanted to be intentional in how it was set up. As such, working from home for clinicians provides a wider net to recruit diverse, amazing talent that would otherwise be inaccessible.

Online counseling practices became popular with the explosion of TalkSpace and BetterHelp (in fact, most of us have likely seen the ads with Michael Phelps about TalkSpace)—and many of these larger companies provide financial benefit to engage with them… such as being cheaper. However, these platforms typically provide low reimbursement for clinicians triggering concerns of clinician turnover and inappropriate ethical considerations. Additionally, when a service is far more cost effective than market value additional concerns are raised about client privacy and ensuring client data is not being sold to offset the cost effectiveness for clients.

Despite the benefits of utilizing tele-health, there are certain situations when tele-health may not be appropriate. These include:

• Complex mental health diagnoses; i.e., visual and/or auditory hallucinations, recent suicidal or homicidal thoughts

• Those 17 years old or younger

• Those with poor Internet connection

• Those with a lack of privacy

Telehealth sessions are conducted via a HIPAA compliant platform with privacy as a paramount concern. Please check our contact page for telehealth specific location information.

Illinois General Assembly: 225 ILCS 150 - Telehealth Act

There are multiple academic articles supporting the effectiveness of online therapy. While Spoken Balance cannot list them all, these are a few to help you make an informed decision if online therapy is an appropriate choice for you.

• Ruwaard, J., Lange, A., Schrieken, B., Dolan, C. V., & Emmelkamp, P. (2012). The effectiveness of online cognitive behavioral treatment in routine clinical practice. PLoS one, 7(7), e40089.

• Kemmeren, L. L., Van Schaik, D. J. F., Riper, H., Kleiboer, A. M., Bosmans, J. E., & Smit, J. H. (2016). Effectiveness of blended depression treatment for adults in specialised mental healthcare: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial. BMC psychiatry, 16(1), 113.

• Wentzel, J., van der Vaart, R., Bohlmeijer, E. T., & van Gemert-Pijnen, J. E. (2016). Mixing online and face-to-face therapy: how to benefit from blended care in mental health care. JMIR mental health, 3(1).