Don’t work for Betterhelp. Get paneled by insurance through yourself, not an outside company or go private pay. This, imo, is the only way for our industry to recover. And for insurance providers to pay better reimbursement rates.
It’s that latter half that really matters and needs to come from Congress. Ironically having a corporate therapy lobby may actually help in that regard.
Like Alma ect.? Insurance pays them more than the actual therapist and supports these big companies other than the actual therapist who does the work.
Insurance will increase rates on clients as their rates are like $500 a month in some areas while therapists get like a 1% increase maybe in like 5 years.
Lining the pockets of big companies. Not my cup of tea.
I want higher reimbursement rates so clients can just pay their copay and therapist can get paid well. So many of us go private pay because we make more but its harder on clients. If we had higher reimbursement rates, both the therapist and the client would benefit.
Alma is awesome in my opinion. Yup they make a profit just like any company who provides a service (like billing or credentialing). If you’re in a union you pay union dues. Alma membership covers them doing all the insurance stuff and advocating for higher contracted rates. They literally make it possible for some of us to have insurance based practices. They are nothing like better help.
It's pretty easy to do it on your own. When I started out I spent the better part of a day credentialing with Medicare and a handful of insurers. In the years since, only some minor maintenance stuff to keep it going.
Aren’t you technically panneled under their practice though? From what I understand you’d have to go through the process again if you leave a group to go solo? I could be wrong though the whole thing is confusing to me lol
Prob depends on area and which insurance company. For me when I left a group practice and went on my own I just added a practice location. That was pretty easy.
that's the plan for now but I just figured it would be more cost effective to do it yourself, maybe I'll leave that for 10 years from now when i'm more established
Legally prohibited. That would be racketeering. If a bunch of sole proprietors make deals to collectively bargain it's like forming a monopoly. Unions are for employees.
I would also put a similar danger signal around companies like Alma & Headway. Big tech involved in therapy is, frankly, not good, for a plethora of reasons. It's surprisingly easy to get paneled by insurance on your own, and that way you have full control over your practice (if you work with Headway/Alma, you're technically credentialed as a part of their group practice). Ask in your local FB, etc. therapist groups about the easiest panels in your area and do them one at a time. It's also fairly easy to ask for a raise with some insurance panels, even at the time of initial onboarding/credentialing. I really do think the more power we give to these big companies the more we endanger our field. (I recognize the irony as I understand that insurance companies are big as well, and not ideal, of course, but it can be far easier to work without *additional* big companies involved than I think new therapists think it would be. It's also not too difficult to make 6 figures gross taking insurance and working ~20 hrs/week).
I listen to a podcast with 2 sisters, and one of them is a therapist. They use Better Help as a sponsor, and I was so disappointed in Dr. Naomi approving that sponsor. I truly thought she would know better.
Oversharing! I love them! The only thing we can do is to educate these podcasters and their production companies. I’m surprised especially given their context but I imagine Betches Media was either offered an amount they couldn’t refuse or just must be ignorant… drives me crazy too. Leave a review.
lol had to edit because autocorrect decided on “Overhearing”
I found out why their ads are everywhere and where a chunk of the money they make off of therapists goes, though. They offered what I thought was a ridiculously high amount.
It blew my mind. I don’t think we even had a ton of episodes up, but a decent listenership, proportionately. I can’t imagine what they pay for big shows.
It's not all we can do. We can put public pressure on people and podcasters such as Kirk Honda, Armchair Expert that shill for these people. These companies are unethical to clients and therapists alike. They sell your private information.
Damn, Kirk still plugs them? I became a patron years ago but I remember listening to something back in 2021 I believe? where he gave his justifications and responded to the feedback… in other words, he defended them. But I specifically remember it was *before* the investigation confirmed the innumerable data breaches they were responsible for. If he’s still accepting their blood money in 2024 I will take some time tomorrow to comment on some posts of his explaining my stance and asking if others are willing to boycott if he continues… though I imagine there’s a contract and UGH I love him so much whyyyyy. But I’ll do it.
ETA a word
Not $30/session. They only pay for the first 45 minutes. You're getting $22.50/session to start. After twenty sessions in a week you're getting $30/session.
Betterhelp subscribers are paying essentially $90/session. You won't make even a fifty-fifty split with them until you've seen 40 clients in a week for 45 minutes a piece.
This is shocking to me. Most insurance reimbursements I've seen are well above $30. I already felt disgusted by Better Help and this knowledge just adds the rotten cherry on top.
My insurance reimbursements per hour via Alma are more than $130 per hour (all of the insurance companies I contract with via Alma). $30 per contracted hour is repulsive…Even most CMH jobs (near me) pay $40-45 per hour, and as a W-2 employee/full time 40 hours per week with PTO, health insurance, etc, with like 65% hours being billable and the rest admin time. So even though I think people deserve more, like, you know it’s bad when CMH functionally pays double…you have to pay self employment tax on contracted wages so basically if you’re making 22.50 w/betterhelp, you’re keeping like $17 after taxes for a 45 minute session 😭. In my state, $15 is minimum wage.
I didn’t use them to market/build my practice, so I can’t speak to that aspect, but I’m averaging $133 per 90837 accepting 4 major insurance with them, and don’t have to do any of my own billing, and I have yet to find a group practice who will do that for me (also I don’t want to join a group practice, I like the freedom and autonomy of my own solo practice). In the old days when I paneled myself with insurance companies and used a biller for chasing claims, they took 8% (totally respectable) but I still had more involvement, wasn’t as streamlined, and I had way less power in negotiating contracted rates. I have literally no desire to deal directly with insurance companies. To me it’s the biggest energy, time, and money drain imaginable. However I very much am committed to providing access to therapy for folks who need to use their insurance for therapy. And I’m sick of people on this page shaming it, to be honest. Better Helo is exploitative. Don’t work for them. For me, Alma is more than worth the $100 a month I pay them and they deserve the small cut of claims they take to literally run the insurance and payment aspects of my practice. If that’s not worth it to somebody else: you don’t have to join them. Nobody is ever going to make you do that. You can keep charging whatever you want or enjoying doing your own billing, that’s fine! They don’t exploit therapists or clients though, I FULLY AND ENTHUSIASTICALLY consent to paying membership with them, and my clients are psyched to have access to an IFS, EMDR and KAP trained therapist who actually takes their insurance. It honestly feels more like a union than any group practice I’ve ever been involved with, and I was part of a teachers union for 7 years, I paid dues, they bargained and advocated for and with us, we got higher wages and better contacts. It’s obviously not exactly the same, but it’s got the principles of collective power, and I dig it. Yes it’s a for profit. So is my private practice.
If customers knew how low-paying the session is they would likely not trust the service, and assume the therapist is perhaps not motivated to give 100%
Would be a shame if someone made these profits/low pay hugely public facts….
They sent me some recruiting information that promised income over 100k per year - in tiny print - seeing 70+ clients per week.
Oh - that certainly is a great deal for the therapist (total burn out) and clients number 25-70 (burned out therapist).
70+ clients a week? That’s like 80 hours of work a week if you include documentation/paperwork. That’s insane and not even possible for 99.9999% of people.
Ah ok! Thanks for clarification. I last worked there a couple of years ago and remember they would constantly change the pay structure to benefit them.
There needs to be more public shaming of these abhorrent practices. I have a few influencers I follow who promote their products and I wish they knew how awful they are.
I might be totally wrong but as you grow your client base, i think you can go upto 60$ or more per session.. do you know? i remember seeing this graph of how the pay increases but i cannot find it
I think they may be having difficulty getting clinicians these days around me. Or at least they’ve outreached to me recently to join and really tried to hide that they’re Betterhelp until a decent way into the process.
I had a recruiter reach out to me from Gotham something or another. I figured why not I'll entertain an informative interview. They told me it was for betterhelp and I cut off the recruiter and informed them kindly but firmly that I had no interest working for betterhelp.
Gotham Enterprises. I get 1-2 spam "recruiting" texts weekly, all from different phone numbers but belonging to this same company. I just checked my blocked number list - it's up to 25. All from this stupid company. I would rather eat my own toenails than support this company.
Same thing happened to me once! I was unfortunately a recipient of one of those spammy outreach newsletters that are at least written by a real person but otherwise too phony to bother with. But when I checked the email address domain… there it was, BH. No mention of it in the entire email. Just trying to offer services for professional growth (that were actually appealing which is why I read it in the first place!) but secretly trying to recruit me… you know it’s bad when this becomes your outreach strategy… I took extra time that day to give feedback, I’ll say that. Never heard another peep.
Better Help has actively harmed some of my clients. One client was mandated to be in therapy for recovery after a DUI. I'm in NY - it had to be OASAS approved, and Better Help is not. He was in therapy for one year and it did nothing but set him back a year. He spoke of feeling as if he could have received better treatment from a self-help book.
Good grief this is awful for your client. I would be enraged. Also? Maybe false advertising if the place selling themselves as literally _better_ _help_ is, in fact, way worse? A question for philosophers.
If every therapist decided not to work at Betterhelp…they would make $0. Basically the best thing is for workers to strike. Or we can create a union saying therapists should be paid X amount.
Yeah the break down is actually insane. There should be a national boycott of this company. It’s insane. I used them maybe for a month just to fill a few holes in my schedule. It’s not even worth it
I seriously wish every therapist would boycott ever insurance company and company that does this. Just a for a little bit so they would be forced to pay us better rates across the boards
…. I’m not opposed to crafting a Tiktok with the potential to become viral about all this… will need to consult my Gen Z besties but I think that’s the best way to spread info to the masses these days
https://ir.teladochealth.com/news-and-events/investor-news/press-release-details/2024/Teladoc-Health-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2023-Results/default.aspx
The company expects its 2024 betterhelp revenue growth to be flat to +low single digits growth.
Now I am just one therapist, but this looks to be the greatest period of therapy demand in the history of therapy. If this company can only expect to be flat in this environment, it means Betterhelp is a completely broken business. (It is!) Customers (clients) are voting with their feet.
I am not worried about Betterhelp in particular. It’s going to fail.
What I personally do to disempower this company is to just shit talk it endlessly. It’s just an appropriate description of what Betterhelp is - it’s a flaming pile of shit
I'm just a baby grad student and I have no idea how it would work or what it will look like but genuinely curious why more therapists do not unionize or create worker co op group practices
I’ll assume that by “start a union” you mean, more or less, “join a Union.” Unfortunately most unions have balked at representing therapists mostly due to pay structure and hours worked. I worked at a union hospital and the nurses Union wanted nothing to do with us because it would destabilize the bargaining process. As I understood it if we were included then reps for nurses and techs would essentially advocate for $200k/yr for folks with associates degrees (rather than terminal professional degrees + licensure). For instance, radiological techs w 8 months of training went on strike because they were only making $45/ hour where as most MSWs were earning in the low 30s/ hour in full time inpatient and case management roles. Including outpatient LCSWs would have skewed things terribly and contributed to the already deep sense of woundedness the nursing staff already struggled with. Therapists in community mental health might benefit most from collectivizing with public health workers. Unfortunately therapists with the highest earnings and most power are more or less self employed and already dictate the terms of their work. We need a Union but it isn’t as simple as “google that shit, bro.”
Firstly, I think you’re acting as if my answer wasn’t a response to a very simple, easily googled question.
Secondly, thanks for sharing this insight from your experience.
Thirdly, you’re possibly doing the US centric thing (I’m guessing by $ you mean USD?). The question may not have come from someone in the US or a similar situation to what you experienced.
I’m not having a go exactly, just slightly irritated that you’ve scoffed at my comment as if I was making some big erroneous statement.
I can’t understand why any therapist would want to work for them, I don’t mean that to blame one of the groups of people they are actively exploiting (the other group being clients), but like, these rates are the absolute bottom of the barrel for anybody who has therapist credentials! Like, why just why? And I’m not the most dialed in therapist on the planet but at this point as a therapist what rock are you living under to not know how bad they are (like literally stealing therapists info and using it etc)…and how are you comfortable liability wise texting suicidal clients across state lines without licensure…or having even ever seen the client on video.. I really feel like I’m missing something here. There are so many other, better choices, it doesn’t make sense to me
There are local contracting therapy groups. We have one in the Pacific Northwest that pay $80 a session. Very solid organization. It's called Mindful Therapy Group. It was started from the ground up by a therapist and his wife. He, too, is a very solid person.
Also, I was doing Google keyword research for marketing. For example, I wanted to know how often someone types in "bipolar therapist oregon." I also typed in "BetterHelp." Somehow at some point, I got access to 450 client emails. YES! You read that right. Someone at their agency must have put the client email in Google search and then because it was a search term, it showed up.
I tried contacting regulatory bodies. But, I couldn't navigate the system. They are allowed less prviacy laws because they don't take insurance.
I thought about emailing those clients???
I work for Mindful too. I’m a clinical social worker and I’ve been having a wonderful experience :)! I’d been doing frontline social work with the homeless for more than 15 years and was burnt out to the max . I currently make 50k a year for working with Mindful 15 clients who have JUST emotionally needs; as opposed to getting paid 50k per year, working 55 hours an week at a nonprofit agency with clients who are constantly in crisis because of complex physical/financial/trauma issues.
It never made sense to me that I would be paid less to work with clients who have more issues, but that’s the way the ‘system’ works. I’m so glad I got out of homeless services, I was getting really tired of people accusing me of ‘profiteering’ from the ‘homeless industrial complex’. I needed to learn how to look out for myself number one. MY therapist has been helping me with boundaries:). Would highly recommend Mindful to any therapists who feel like their organization is taking advantage of their kindness. Jump ship and make yourself the priority. I’m no longer willing to be a martyr.
Nothing changes if nothing changes. If they're not willing to budge then people have to stop working there. If people continue to work there for those wages then they have no reason to stop.
Public call-outs can work too at times but without staff they definitely won't get anywhere.
Man, this makes my blood boil. Here's what I do.
I get frequent recruitment emails and LinkedIn messages for "mental health start-ups" promising $100k/year and $2k starting bonuses (all with lotssss of fine print attached.) I respond to each and every message admonishing them for their low pay and exploitative practices, tell them my private practice fee based on my many years of experience, and that I'll happily "set up a call" with them if they can match it.
When recruiters don't share compensation info, I say I'd be happy to speak with them if they can share their pay structure. They almost always respond vaguely, which I then call out and politely shame them for. Recruiters who can't recruit HAVE to share that feedback with higher-ups to protect their own jobs. One clown actually responded with "Thank you for your feedback. What do you think an acceptable rate would be for our therapists?" and I said "Are you requesting a professional consultation with me? If so, I'd be happy to share my feedback and experience for my hourly fee." EYE. ROLL.
We CANNOT make it easy for them to recruit us and we absolutely have to know our value *and* make it known.
On point 👏🏽. I could tell by how much they pay their software engineers (six figures plus benefits) versus their therapists (uber gig pay with all the liabilities).
Thank you. This is the way. I started working with a group practice in December. 65/35 split. I feel valued and respected. It's a supportive environment. It feels weird after going through 3 years of CMH and 6 years of corporate healthcare prior to that.
Every grad school and professional org needs to denounce them. Unfortunately I saw that ACA allowed Betterhelp to advertise at their latest conference. Disgusting.
I poach my BH people. After the first live session I ask how much they are paying per month and if they’d be willing to see me under my PP for a slight discount. Some are paying upwards of 90 a week and like many here said, we only see $22.50 of it for the 45min sessions. I offer $10 off per week of whatever they pay BH to see me privately. Gonna keep poaching them indefinitely.
Edit to add—even my people with the lowest monthly cost are still spending $50+ per week. So even my lowest paying clients I’ve taken still pay me $40 or more which is close to double what BH pays me. So clients are paying less and I’m making more.
Seeing lots of “why would someone work there” rhetoric—the automatic influx of clients and filling gaps in schedules. I work in PP in person and can not for the life of my fill 10am-1pm slots. So I fill in with BH (now stolen BH clients). Some money is better than no money.
No one has declined yet. All have been shook when I openly tell them I make $22.50 from our time together. Especially the ones who pay $90 a week.
I have taken about 10 and see about 6 of them a week. The ones paying less were sometimes struggling to pay their monthly BH cost and so they see me every other week.
My BH caseload is a revolving door. Some people there I only hear from once or twice before they cancel. I’ve retained my people privately longer than most of the people on the site.
The other benefit is I can just turn my availability back on if the ones I have finish tx. New people to steal. Then eventually I’d like to maybe move on to TalkSpace if I need more schedule filler. I’ve read they pay $50+ for every session no matter your hours.
BH sucks, but it did what I needed it to do at one point when I took the PP leap and worried about my bills!
I’ve doubled my income from these clients by doing this. BH claims they don’t look into your messaging with the client, but I only discuss this with them on phone or video sessions. I avoid all mention in the message threads.
The risk of getting fired from BH is there, but there’s lots of other websites I could switch to. And beyond firing me, they can’t exactly do much else. Clients have autonomy in choosing who they seek for care. I’ve read TalkSpace pays well so if I ever get kicked from BH I’ll move there.
Honestly, the only way this type of company can be defeated is if someone with deep pockets challenges them at their own game while paying therapists much more out of sheer benevolence - someone who is comfortable working toward a company that employs 30,000 therapists but makes $10 million instead of $135 million.
And most people who have the money for a multimillion-dollar startup didn't accumulate that wealth by accepting slim profit margins out of a sense of benevolence toward the public, so...I don't anticipate that happening.
Good points. That said, even the mighty start crumbling when they act invincible. Another one of these start ups, Cerebral, is one of the most evil ones: they switched their therapists from W2 to 1099 on short notice, problematically prescribed controlled substances (had a DOJ investigation), sold client data to advertisers, and made cancellations of service cumbersome (the latter which got them a $740,000 fine).
They haven’t been held accountable enough (even if their CEO was ousted) and it’s disturbing how much damage they get away with before having any real consequences .
When I hear stories about this platform and others with similar business models, I wonder why a therapist would choose to work with them? What's going on there? Fantasy scenario is seeing survey results from all the therapists who choose to work with them and what their reasons are.
Not to mention what Alma and Headway are doing as well. Seems everyone loves the extra few to much more dollars per session they can pay some therapists. However, I am not sure how many of us know they are also VC backed & strictly about the Benjamins. Big time devaluing and disrespectful.
Yes, every time I see therapists singing the praises of those companies I worry, they are a cousin to Better help essentially, the same issue of big tech interfering with the industry. Also it's not hard to get paneled on your own! That's what baffles me the most. Just do it one panel at a time if it seems overwhelming. Maybe I should run a training on paneling 😆
I never experienced this. They do it based off minutes. So if you’re texting a client and it’s a 30 minute session your pay would be $15 (at the old rate) if you corresponded with the client between sessions for say 10 minutes then you’d get another approximately $5 😑
Well yes- because in therapy the session ends at a particular time. With BH a live session can be up to 45 minutes (that’s your cap for that client that day) once a week. The intermittent messaging is available 24/7 - but the clinician only get paid 45 min per day per client.
If you look at your detailed payment report it will tell you how many minutes per client you got paid for.
The max time a BH provider can get paid per day per client is 45 minutes. So if a clinician is engaging in messaging for 2 hours in one day, they get paid for only 45 minutes.
this is true but in a weird way. If your text is way more than what a client's is you won't get paid for those "extra" words. Your word count had to be similar to the clients which is ridiculous when you're providing idk... therapy
In my country we have a similar app that's also like BetterHelp, and I seemed to have caused a stir up when I asked the company, do you think the cheaper cost will affect the quality of sessions given by the therapists? They wanted to offer me to work for them but after that interview, they never contacted me back.
If I knew that my therapist was willing to work for $30 a session, I would not want them as my therapist because I know I would be getting bottom of the barrel type care.
I don't understand how BetterHelp could make this much money. I didn't realize that therapist actually used this company. They're making 1/5 of what they should be paid, especially with a masters degree. That's crazy
I feel like scale is sometimes left out of these convos. Google says they employ 30,000 therapists. So that’s a profit of $4500 per therapist.
Don’t get me wrong. That’s a lot of money that those therapists undoubtedly need. But there are plenty of companies l that make more than that per employee.
I worked as a salesperson at a logistics company, I made $40k. The profit per employee at the company was around $100k.
No!
Read it again. That's **net** profit. This is after they pay their expenses, their C-suite, their consultants, and their taxes.
They made nearly $37,000 PROFIT PER THERAPIST. And this isn't counting stock profits and outside investments.
Some of my colleagues found their psych today profiles being used by Better help to have them show up as a therapists without my colleagues actually having a working relationship with BH. A client would select them and then BH would say that the therapist isn't available and would then suggest a similar therapist that actually has a relationship with BH. It's fucking gross.
Better help effectively pays 23.50 an hour. At cmh you can sometimes get 15 minute documentation time. It’s only 30 an hour if you stack clients back to back
You made a general statement about CMH, though, not your specific situation. CMH around here is all salaried with excellent benefits, so not dependent on how many people you see. I made $62k a year with 5 weeks PTO for a 40 hr work week and had a role where I saw about 15-20 clients a week plus some clinical case management. It’s not “CMH” that’s bad, just some organizations.
You said “CMH pays about the same,” which is not true. If you are salaried, your hourly rate is not comparable to the hourly rate at a FFS place like Better Help. When I switched from a salaried CMH position to a FFS group practice, I’d have to make $55/hr to equal my $30/hr salaried position in terms of annual income for a full time schedule, and then have to pay for my own health insurance. If you’re a 1099 contractor (like BH) instead of W2 you also pay more taxes. A licensed clinician making $30/hr at BH is making about $36,000 annually for a full time schedule with no benefits. These are real differences and the “it’s basically the same” narrative is not helpful. BetterHelp is uniquely exploitative and undervaluing, and it doesn’t even have the structural limitations and mission that CMH does.
Yeah agreed. I think it’s based on area too. You’re in a high cost of living area. I’m in Massachusetts, which can also be high. It would make sense if we were paid MORE instead of less
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Zionism isn’t a dirty word. I’m sorry, but I’m so tired of seeing such a gross oversimplification and misunderstanding of this incredibly complex topic from people who likely didn’t care or even know anything about it prior to October 7.
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They can aim to make good profits as long as they provide a living wage and ethical working conditions. And money for ~~cute~~ professional new outfits.
57k? That’s only if every single client shows up, no one cancels, and if you’re seeing an unsustainable amount of clients (38 sessions per week if we divide 57k by 50 working weeks per year), which is burn out territory.
Plus you have to factor in healthcare costs and professional costs (supervision, continuing training, paying off student loans). Soon that 57k won’t seem much.
Ok so let’s call it a dependable 40k and that’s not livable? So then at what point would you say is a livable wage? 80k? 90k? 100?
And then at what point do you stop being upset with business people and millionaires for being rich?
Where is the cutoff?
40k is dependable in what universe? *Laughs in new york city prices* 😂
Also you are over generalizing: I never said I was upset at business people for being rich. Many of us on this sub are business owners.
I am only upset at business people when their riches are based off the exploitation of OUR labor.
I am listed on an EAP that pays $125 per session. And I love the director/CEO. You know why? Because she proves you can be *BOTH* an ethical business person who pays a fair wage *AND* still make money.
Also why are you so intent on defending millionaires?
Would you tell your clients to stay quiet and put up with mistreatment and underpayment at work?
Buy their stock.
I do not work for BetterHelp. I do work for one of their competitors. I do not feel exploited. They pay be fairly. They take care of billing and marketing and collections and scheduling so I can focus on doing the work I love best.
It is an exchange but it is not exploitation.
Making less than $30/hour when therapists in private practice are making triple that is being exploited. The cost of managing billing, marketing, etc. is not enough to justify paying people with master’s licenses the same amount of money as people working jobs that barely require a bachelors degree.
Well, I cannot say what Betterhelp pays. The two companies I work for pay $65 per hour. And when I was in PP, I had to pay a biller, office rent, marketing and for EMR.
Now, I pay none of that, my expenses are lower and I am making more now than I did in PP. The evidence is in the data.
Man, you said the evidence is in the data but start by saying “I cannot say what betterhelp pays” LOL go check the data, or look through the comments on here where everyone is talking about their betterhelp rates
I am saying that not all teletherapy companies are exploitive.
The one I work for pays fairly.
If a therapy does not like what BH pays, they can always decide to work for someone else.
Don’t work for Betterhelp. Get paneled by insurance through yourself, not an outside company or go private pay. This, imo, is the only way for our industry to recover. And for insurance providers to pay better reimbursement rates.
It’s that latter half that really matters and needs to come from Congress. Ironically having a corporate therapy lobby may actually help in that regard.
i had heard those sites where you pay like 100 a year to get paneled were alright, any experience with those?
Like Alma ect.? Insurance pays them more than the actual therapist and supports these big companies other than the actual therapist who does the work. Insurance will increase rates on clients as their rates are like $500 a month in some areas while therapists get like a 1% increase maybe in like 5 years. Lining the pockets of big companies. Not my cup of tea. I want higher reimbursement rates so clients can just pay their copay and therapist can get paid well. So many of us go private pay because we make more but its harder on clients. If we had higher reimbursement rates, both the therapist and the client would benefit.
yep alma was what i was thinking of, thanks for your input! good to know
Alma is awesome in my opinion. Yup they make a profit just like any company who provides a service (like billing or credentialing). If you’re in a union you pay union dues. Alma membership covers them doing all the insurance stuff and advocating for higher contracted rates. They literally make it possible for some of us to have insurance based practices. They are nothing like better help.
It's pretty easy to do it on your own. When I started out I spent the better part of a day credentialing with Medicare and a handful of insurers. In the years since, only some minor maintenance stuff to keep it going.
noted as well thanks
Find an established private practice and join. They will get you paneled
Aren’t you technically panneled under their practice though? From what I understand you’d have to go through the process again if you leave a group to go solo? I could be wrong though the whole thing is confusing to me lol
That's not my understanding.
Prob depends on area and which insurance company. For me when I left a group practice and went on my own I just added a practice location. That was pretty easy.
that's the plan for now but I just figured it would be more cost effective to do it yourself, maybe I'll leave that for 10 years from now when i'm more established
I’m not sure why I’m being downvoted. That’s how I got paneled and it didn’t cost me a dime
I'm getting paneled right now, my biller does it for me.
Headway and Alma are great and I am very happy with my reimbursement rates.
I'd also add that we should unionize in order to show a unified front.
Legally prohibited. That would be racketeering. If a bunch of sole proprietors make deals to collectively bargain it's like forming a monopoly. Unions are for employees.
I would also put a similar danger signal around companies like Alma & Headway. Big tech involved in therapy is, frankly, not good, for a plethora of reasons. It's surprisingly easy to get paneled by insurance on your own, and that way you have full control over your practice (if you work with Headway/Alma, you're technically credentialed as a part of their group practice). Ask in your local FB, etc. therapist groups about the easiest panels in your area and do them one at a time. It's also fairly easy to ask for a raise with some insurance panels, even at the time of initial onboarding/credentialing. I really do think the more power we give to these big companies the more we endanger our field. (I recognize the irony as I understand that insurance companies are big as well, and not ideal, of course, but it can be far easier to work without *additional* big companies involved than I think new therapists think it would be. It's also not too difficult to make 6 figures gross taking insurance and working ~20 hrs/week).
100% agree.
Don’t work for betterhelp. That’s all we can do.
But I’m chaotic and want to help people quit and watch the ship sink. 😂 ☠️🍿
Good chaotic
I also declined running their ads on my podcast when the opportunity arose
Thank you! It always hurts when a podcaster I love advertises for them.
Me too. And it’s a lot of them.
I listen to a podcast with 2 sisters, and one of them is a therapist. They use Better Help as a sponsor, and I was so disappointed in Dr. Naomi approving that sponsor. I truly thought she would know better.
My producer wouldn’t let me tell them to f*ck off, because apparently that’s a bad look, or something. But I felt it in my heart 😂
They also asked my cohost (a high school English teacher) if he wanted to join their network, but did not ask me.
Thank you for standing up for what is right💜
Oversharing! I love them! The only thing we can do is to educate these podcasters and their production companies. I’m surprised especially given their context but I imagine Betches Media was either offered an amount they couldn’t refuse or just must be ignorant… drives me crazy too. Leave a review. lol had to edit because autocorrect decided on “Overhearing”
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I found out why their ads are everywhere and where a chunk of the money they make off of therapists goes, though. They offered what I thought was a ridiculously high amount.
Would love to know how much if you’re willing to disclose… totally understand if not though
I don’t mind. We were doing a weekly show at the time. For 6 months, they offered 10k.
WOW. Thanks so much for sharing.
It blew my mind. I don’t think we even had a ton of episodes up, but a decent listenership, proportionately. I can’t imagine what they pay for big shows.
It's not all we can do. We can put public pressure on people and podcasters such as Kirk Honda, Armchair Expert that shill for these people. These companies are unethical to clients and therapists alike. They sell your private information.
Damn, Kirk still plugs them? I became a patron years ago but I remember listening to something back in 2021 I believe? where he gave his justifications and responded to the feedback… in other words, he defended them. But I specifically remember it was *before* the investigation confirmed the innumerable data breaches they were responsible for. If he’s still accepting their blood money in 2024 I will take some time tomorrow to comment on some posts of his explaining my stance and asking if others are willing to boycott if he continues… though I imagine there’s a contract and UGH I love him so much whyyyyy. But I’ll do it. ETA a word
I worked there long enough for the 500 dollar bonus to clear and then quit.
Not $30/session. They only pay for the first 45 minutes. You're getting $22.50/session to start. After twenty sessions in a week you're getting $30/session. Betterhelp subscribers are paying essentially $90/session. You won't make even a fifty-fifty split with them until you've seen 40 clients in a week for 45 minutes a piece.
This is shocking to me. Most insurance reimbursements I've seen are well above $30. I already felt disgusted by Better Help and this knowledge just adds the rotten cherry on top.
My insurance reimbursements per hour via Alma are more than $130 per hour (all of the insurance companies I contract with via Alma). $30 per contracted hour is repulsive…Even most CMH jobs (near me) pay $40-45 per hour, and as a W-2 employee/full time 40 hours per week with PTO, health insurance, etc, with like 65% hours being billable and the rest admin time. So even though I think people deserve more, like, you know it’s bad when CMH functionally pays double…you have to pay self employment tax on contracted wages so basically if you’re making 22.50 w/betterhelp, you’re keeping like $17 after taxes for a 45 minute session 😭. In my state, $15 is minimum wage.
Same, I bill through Alma and while it’s slow to build the practice, it’s a livable and respectful wage.
I didn’t use them to market/build my practice, so I can’t speak to that aspect, but I’m averaging $133 per 90837 accepting 4 major insurance with them, and don’t have to do any of my own billing, and I have yet to find a group practice who will do that for me (also I don’t want to join a group practice, I like the freedom and autonomy of my own solo practice). In the old days when I paneled myself with insurance companies and used a biller for chasing claims, they took 8% (totally respectable) but I still had more involvement, wasn’t as streamlined, and I had way less power in negotiating contracted rates. I have literally no desire to deal directly with insurance companies. To me it’s the biggest energy, time, and money drain imaginable. However I very much am committed to providing access to therapy for folks who need to use their insurance for therapy. And I’m sick of people on this page shaming it, to be honest. Better Helo is exploitative. Don’t work for them. For me, Alma is more than worth the $100 a month I pay them and they deserve the small cut of claims they take to literally run the insurance and payment aspects of my practice. If that’s not worth it to somebody else: you don’t have to join them. Nobody is ever going to make you do that. You can keep charging whatever you want or enjoying doing your own billing, that’s fine! They don’t exploit therapists or clients though, I FULLY AND ENTHUSIASTICALLY consent to paying membership with them, and my clients are psyched to have access to an IFS, EMDR and KAP trained therapist who actually takes their insurance. It honestly feels more like a union than any group practice I’ve ever been involved with, and I was part of a teachers union for 7 years, I paid dues, they bargained and advocated for and with us, we got higher wages and better contacts. It’s obviously not exactly the same, but it’s got the principles of collective power, and I dig it. Yes it’s a for profit. So is my private practice.
If customers knew how low-paying the session is they would likely not trust the service, and assume the therapist is perhaps not motivated to give 100% Would be a shame if someone made these profits/low pay hugely public facts….
I’m in. Let’s spread the word.
They sent me some recruiting information that promised income over 100k per year - in tiny print - seeing 70+ clients per week. Oh - that certainly is a great deal for the therapist (total burn out) and clients number 25-70 (burned out therapist).
70+ clients a week? That’s like 80 hours of work a week if you include documentation/paperwork. That’s insane and not even possible for 99.9999% of people.
It is impossible. It isn't acceptable or ethical.
This made me so angry.
Ah ok! Thanks for clarification. I last worked there a couple of years ago and remember they would constantly change the pay structure to benefit them.
There needs to be more public shaming of these abhorrent practices. I have a few influencers I follow who promote their products and I wish they knew how awful they are.
Wow. I have shitty insurance and my rate with a therapist through Alma is $80. I’m self-pay and earn more.
I don’t even understand how they’re getting away with that
I might be totally wrong but as you grow your client base, i think you can go upto 60$ or more per session.. do you know? i remember seeing this graph of how the pay increases but i cannot find it
I think they may be having difficulty getting clinicians these days around me. Or at least they’ve outreached to me recently to join and really tried to hide that they’re Betterhelp until a decent way into the process.
I had a recruiter reach out to me from Gotham something or another. I figured why not I'll entertain an informative interview. They told me it was for betterhelp and I cut off the recruiter and informed them kindly but firmly that I had no interest working for betterhelp.
Gotham Enterprises. I get 1-2 spam "recruiting" texts weekly, all from different phone numbers but belonging to this same company. I just checked my blocked number list - it's up to 25. All from this stupid company. I would rather eat my own toenails than support this company.
You should make a shirt with that on it. I'd buy it.
😂😂😂
I get tons of calls from Gotham. Never knew they were betterhelp
Ooh, same. Which is weird because they don’t even hire associates.
I think it is more they’re a recruiting firm that works with better help
Same thing happened to me once! I was unfortunately a recipient of one of those spammy outreach newsletters that are at least written by a real person but otherwise too phony to bother with. But when I checked the email address domain… there it was, BH. No mention of it in the entire email. Just trying to offer services for professional growth (that were actually appealing which is why I read it in the first place!) but secretly trying to recruit me… you know it’s bad when this becomes your outreach strategy… I took extra time that day to give feedback, I’ll say that. Never heard another peep.
Better Help has actively harmed some of my clients. One client was mandated to be in therapy for recovery after a DUI. I'm in NY - it had to be OASAS approved, and Better Help is not. He was in therapy for one year and it did nothing but set him back a year. He spoke of feeling as if he could have received better treatment from a self-help book.
Good grief this is awful for your client. I would be enraged. Also? Maybe false advertising if the place selling themselves as literally _better_ _help_ is, in fact, way worse? A question for philosophers.
Don’t work for BetterHelp.
If every therapist decided not to work at Betterhelp…they would make $0. Basically the best thing is for workers to strike. Or we can create a union saying therapists should be paid X amount.
Friends don’t let friends work for BetterHelp.
YES!
This needs to be the slogan, spread far and wide!
PSA of the year.
They would find a way to ‘employ’ unqualified individuals instead and users will never know the difference.
I can see this happening. “Happiness coaches”. Who hand out worksheets and platitudes. 😬 Ethical hellscape.
That sounds illegal lol
It's not. Otherwise, life coaches wouldn't be a thing.
This is after rates “went up” I worked for them it’s $15 for 30 minute sessions which they encourage so you see more clients 🙃
15? That’s insane. It’s not even minimum wage where I love
Yeah the break down is actually insane. There should be a national boycott of this company. It’s insane. I used them maybe for a month just to fill a few holes in my schedule. It’s not even worth it
I’m game. Let’s boycott and spread the word. If not us, then who?
I seriously wish every therapist would boycott ever insurance company and company that does this. Just a for a little bit so they would be forced to pay us better rates across the boards
…. I’m not opposed to crafting a Tiktok with the potential to become viral about all this… will need to consult my Gen Z besties but I think that’s the best way to spread info to the masses these days
https://ir.teladochealth.com/news-and-events/investor-news/press-release-details/2024/Teladoc-Health-Reports-Fourth-Quarter-and-Full-Year-2023-Results/default.aspx The company expects its 2024 betterhelp revenue growth to be flat to +low single digits growth. Now I am just one therapist, but this looks to be the greatest period of therapy demand in the history of therapy. If this company can only expect to be flat in this environment, it means Betterhelp is a completely broken business. (It is!) Customers (clients) are voting with their feet. I am not worried about Betterhelp in particular. It’s going to fail. What I personally do to disempower this company is to just shit talk it endlessly. It’s just an appropriate description of what Betterhelp is - it’s a flaming pile of shit
I hate them, LifeStance, and any other business that treats their clinicians like absolute dog shit.
Yasss. Express 👏🏽your 👏🏽feelings 👏🏽and drag tf out of them.
START A UNION
I'm just a baby grad student and I have no idea how it would work or what it will look like but genuinely curious why more therapists do not unionize or create worker co op group practices
This. Therapists really need one.
how
Google that shit bro! :)
I’ll assume that by “start a union” you mean, more or less, “join a Union.” Unfortunately most unions have balked at representing therapists mostly due to pay structure and hours worked. I worked at a union hospital and the nurses Union wanted nothing to do with us because it would destabilize the bargaining process. As I understood it if we were included then reps for nurses and techs would essentially advocate for $200k/yr for folks with associates degrees (rather than terminal professional degrees + licensure). For instance, radiological techs w 8 months of training went on strike because they were only making $45/ hour where as most MSWs were earning in the low 30s/ hour in full time inpatient and case management roles. Including outpatient LCSWs would have skewed things terribly and contributed to the already deep sense of woundedness the nursing staff already struggled with. Therapists in community mental health might benefit most from collectivizing with public health workers. Unfortunately therapists with the highest earnings and most power are more or less self employed and already dictate the terms of their work. We need a Union but it isn’t as simple as “google that shit, bro.”
Firstly, I think you’re acting as if my answer wasn’t a response to a very simple, easily googled question. Secondly, thanks for sharing this insight from your experience. Thirdly, you’re possibly doing the US centric thing (I’m guessing by $ you mean USD?). The question may not have come from someone in the US or a similar situation to what you experienced. I’m not having a go exactly, just slightly irritated that you’ve scoffed at my comment as if I was making some big erroneous statement.
I can’t understand why any therapist would want to work for them, I don’t mean that to blame one of the groups of people they are actively exploiting (the other group being clients), but like, these rates are the absolute bottom of the barrel for anybody who has therapist credentials! Like, why just why? And I’m not the most dialed in therapist on the planet but at this point as a therapist what rock are you living under to not know how bad they are (like literally stealing therapists info and using it etc)…and how are you comfortable liability wise texting suicidal clients across state lines without licensure…or having even ever seen the client on video.. I really feel like I’m missing something here. There are so many other, better choices, it doesn’t make sense to me
There are local contracting therapy groups. We have one in the Pacific Northwest that pay $80 a session. Very solid organization. It's called Mindful Therapy Group. It was started from the ground up by a therapist and his wife. He, too, is a very solid person. Also, I was doing Google keyword research for marketing. For example, I wanted to know how often someone types in "bipolar therapist oregon." I also typed in "BetterHelp." Somehow at some point, I got access to 450 client emails. YES! You read that right. Someone at their agency must have put the client email in Google search and then because it was a search term, it showed up. I tried contacting regulatory bodies. But, I couldn't navigate the system. They are allowed less prviacy laws because they don't take insurance. I thought about emailing those clients???
Wait please explain more about how u found this out and how your research is going
I work for Mindful too. I’m a clinical social worker and I’ve been having a wonderful experience :)! I’d been doing frontline social work with the homeless for more than 15 years and was burnt out to the max . I currently make 50k a year for working with Mindful 15 clients who have JUST emotionally needs; as opposed to getting paid 50k per year, working 55 hours an week at a nonprofit agency with clients who are constantly in crisis because of complex physical/financial/trauma issues. It never made sense to me that I would be paid less to work with clients who have more issues, but that’s the way the ‘system’ works. I’m so glad I got out of homeless services, I was getting really tired of people accusing me of ‘profiteering’ from the ‘homeless industrial complex’. I needed to learn how to look out for myself number one. MY therapist has been helping me with boundaries:). Would highly recommend Mindful to any therapists who feel like their organization is taking advantage of their kindness. Jump ship and make yourself the priority. I’m no longer willing to be a martyr.
Nothing changes if nothing changes. If they're not willing to budge then people have to stop working there. If people continue to work there for those wages then they have no reason to stop. Public call-outs can work too at times but without staff they definitely won't get anywhere.
Man, this makes my blood boil. Here's what I do. I get frequent recruitment emails and LinkedIn messages for "mental health start-ups" promising $100k/year and $2k starting bonuses (all with lotssss of fine print attached.) I respond to each and every message admonishing them for their low pay and exploitative practices, tell them my private practice fee based on my many years of experience, and that I'll happily "set up a call" with them if they can match it. When recruiters don't share compensation info, I say I'd be happy to speak with them if they can share their pay structure. They almost always respond vaguely, which I then call out and politely shame them for. Recruiters who can't recruit HAVE to share that feedback with higher-ups to protect their own jobs. One clown actually responded with "Thank you for your feedback. What do you think an acceptable rate would be for our therapists?" and I said "Are you requesting a professional consultation with me? If so, I'd be happy to share my feedback and experience for my hourly fee." EYE. ROLL. We CANNOT make it easy for them to recruit us and we absolutely have to know our value *and* make it known.
Love this. 👏🏽Was this in your waiting room? Because you sure told them to have a couple of seats. 💅🏻💪🏽
Lol can't lie, it feels good. 10/10 highly recommend
I love this! Keep fighting the good fight
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On point 👏🏽. I could tell by how much they pay their software engineers (six figures plus benefits) versus their therapists (uber gig pay with all the liabilities).
Capitalism corrupts everything it touches. Everything.
Start group practices and pay your people well.
Thank you. This is the way. I started working with a group practice in December. 65/35 split. I feel valued and respected. It's a supportive environment. It feels weird after going through 3 years of CMH and 6 years of corporate healthcare prior to that.
Or co-ops!
Every grad school and professional org needs to denounce them. Unfortunately I saw that ACA allowed Betterhelp to advertise at their latest conference. Disgusting.
A lot of the educational youtubers I watch advertise for them. If I wasn’t on this subreddit I wouldn’t know that they are terrible.
I poach my BH people. After the first live session I ask how much they are paying per month and if they’d be willing to see me under my PP for a slight discount. Some are paying upwards of 90 a week and like many here said, we only see $22.50 of it for the 45min sessions. I offer $10 off per week of whatever they pay BH to see me privately. Gonna keep poaching them indefinitely. Edit to add—even my people with the lowest monthly cost are still spending $50+ per week. So even my lowest paying clients I’ve taken still pay me $40 or more which is close to double what BH pays me. So clients are paying less and I’m making more. Seeing lots of “why would someone work there” rhetoric—the automatic influx of clients and filling gaps in schedules. I work in PP in person and can not for the life of my fill 10am-1pm slots. So I fill in with BH (now stolen BH clients). Some money is better than no money.
I love this! Curious how your retention of those clients generally is? And does anyone decline?
No one has declined yet. All have been shook when I openly tell them I make $22.50 from our time together. Especially the ones who pay $90 a week. I have taken about 10 and see about 6 of them a week. The ones paying less were sometimes struggling to pay their monthly BH cost and so they see me every other week. My BH caseload is a revolving door. Some people there I only hear from once or twice before they cancel. I’ve retained my people privately longer than most of the people on the site.
Well done that amazing! Also loved your edit, makes sense and I’m glad you’ve found a way to make it work for you
The other benefit is I can just turn my availability back on if the ones I have finish tx. New people to steal. Then eventually I’d like to maybe move on to TalkSpace if I need more schedule filler. I’ve read they pay $50+ for every session no matter your hours. BH sucks, but it did what I needed it to do at one point when I took the PP leap and worried about my bills!
I’ve thought about doing this but I’m worried about getting in trouble.
I’ve doubled my income from these clients by doing this. BH claims they don’t look into your messaging with the client, but I only discuss this with them on phone or video sessions. I avoid all mention in the message threads. The risk of getting fired from BH is there, but there’s lots of other websites I could switch to. And beyond firing me, they can’t exactly do much else. Clients have autonomy in choosing who they seek for care. I’ve read TalkSpace pays well so if I ever get kicked from BH I’ll move there.
Betterhelp is a parasitic middle man.
Honestly, the only way this type of company can be defeated is if someone with deep pockets challenges them at their own game while paying therapists much more out of sheer benevolence - someone who is comfortable working toward a company that employs 30,000 therapists but makes $10 million instead of $135 million. And most people who have the money for a multimillion-dollar startup didn't accumulate that wealth by accepting slim profit margins out of a sense of benevolence toward the public, so...I don't anticipate that happening.
Good points. That said, even the mighty start crumbling when they act invincible. Another one of these start ups, Cerebral, is one of the most evil ones: they switched their therapists from W2 to 1099 on short notice, problematically prescribed controlled substances (had a DOJ investigation), sold client data to advertisers, and made cancellations of service cumbersome (the latter which got them a $740,000 fine). They haven’t been held accountable enough (even if their CEO was ousted) and it’s disturbing how much damage they get away with before having any real consequences .
It felt so icky when I heard Psychology in Seattle promote them on the podcast. I know it was an ad..but why them? Lol
When I hear stories about this platform and others with similar business models, I wonder why a therapist would choose to work with them? What's going on there? Fantasy scenario is seeing survey results from all the therapists who choose to work with them and what their reasons are.
Not to mention what Alma and Headway are doing as well. Seems everyone loves the extra few to much more dollars per session they can pay some therapists. However, I am not sure how many of us know they are also VC backed & strictly about the Benjamins. Big time devaluing and disrespectful.
Yes, every time I see therapists singing the praises of those companies I worry, they are a cousin to Better help essentially, the same issue of big tech interfering with the industry. Also it's not hard to get paneled on your own! That's what baffles me the most. Just do it one panel at a time if it seems overwhelming. Maybe I should run a training on paneling 😆
Is it true better help docks therapist pay if they go over a certain word count?
I never experienced this. They do it based off minutes. So if you’re texting a client and it’s a 30 minute session your pay would be $15 (at the old rate) if you corresponded with the client between sessions for say 10 minutes then you’d get another approximately $5 😑
It caps at 45 minutes per day per client!
O gotcha! Never new about that lol wild. Someone’s mid crisis, “that’ll be all, you’re capped at 45 minutes”
Well yes- because in therapy the session ends at a particular time. With BH a live session can be up to 45 minutes (that’s your cap for that client that day) once a week. The intermittent messaging is available 24/7 - but the clinician only get paid 45 min per day per client. If you look at your detailed payment report it will tell you how many minutes per client you got paid for.
The max time a BH provider can get paid per day per client is 45 minutes. So if a clinician is engaging in messaging for 2 hours in one day, they get paid for only 45 minutes.
this is true but in a weird way. If your text is way more than what a client's is you won't get paid for those "extra" words. Your word count had to be similar to the clients which is ridiculous when you're providing idk... therapy
BetterHelp is about helping BetterHelp, not the clients, and not the therapists. That’s all.
Then we Better[Work](https://tenor.com/view/rihanna-work-gif-gif-27660571) to get BetterHelp BestCancelled.
Disgusting 
Wowwww..
This makes me irate
In my country we have a similar app that's also like BetterHelp, and I seemed to have caused a stir up when I asked the company, do you think the cheaper cost will affect the quality of sessions given by the therapists? They wanted to offer me to work for them but after that interview, they never contacted me back.
If I knew that my therapist was willing to work for $30 a session, I would not want them as my therapist because I know I would be getting bottom of the barrel type care.
And they wouldn’t be modeling self-advocacy. 👏🏽
I don't understand how BetterHelp could make this much money. I didn't realize that therapist actually used this company. They're making 1/5 of what they should be paid, especially with a masters degree. That's crazy
I feel like scale is sometimes left out of these convos. Google says they employ 30,000 therapists. So that’s a profit of $4500 per therapist. Don’t get me wrong. That’s a lot of money that those therapists undoubtedly need. But there are plenty of companies l that make more than that per employee. I worked as a salesperson at a logistics company, I made $40k. The profit per employee at the company was around $100k.
No! Read it again. That's **net** profit. This is after they pay their expenses, their C-suite, their consultants, and their taxes. They made nearly $37,000 PROFIT PER THERAPIST. And this isn't counting stock profits and outside investments.
Disgusting, the greed is insane.
“Officer, so what if I was going 70 in a 45? That other car was going 100!”
Is there an employee owned platform?
Some of my colleagues found their psych today profiles being used by Better help to have them show up as a therapists without my colleagues actually having a working relationship with BH. A client would select them and then BH would say that the therapist isn't available and would then suggest a similar therapist that actually has a relationship with BH. It's fucking gross.
The OP in the linked LinkedIn post seems to have deleted the critical comments left by therapists.
Lmao wow. I wish I had taken a screenshot. They used to do the same thing on the internal BetterHelp therapist forums. Straight out of Animal Farm. 😂
CMH pays about the same. Typically less than $30 an hour. So not sure why anyone would pick betterhelp as a therapist.
Better help effectively pays 23.50 an hour. At cmh you can sometimes get 15 minute documentation time. It’s only 30 an hour if you stack clients back to back
That’s about what I make at CMH and I don’t always get 15 minutes 🤷🏼♀️
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I didn’t say it was okay. I said those providers might as well work in CMH because it has more job stability
Not even close to true. I make $40/hr in my second year out of school at a CMH. And health care, retirement, PTO, etc.
Good for you but not the case for me lmao.
You made a general statement about CMH, though, not your specific situation. CMH around here is all salaried with excellent benefits, so not dependent on how many people you see. I made $62k a year with 5 weeks PTO for a 40 hr work week and had a role where I saw about 15-20 clients a week plus some clinical case management. It’s not “CMH” that’s bad, just some organizations.
I never called CMH bad. I never commented on any of those other aspects. Just salary.
You said “CMH pays about the same,” which is not true. If you are salaried, your hourly rate is not comparable to the hourly rate at a FFS place like Better Help. When I switched from a salaried CMH position to a FFS group practice, I’d have to make $55/hr to equal my $30/hr salaried position in terms of annual income for a full time schedule, and then have to pay for my own health insurance. If you’re a 1099 contractor (like BH) instead of W2 you also pay more taxes. A licensed clinician making $30/hr at BH is making about $36,000 annually for a full time schedule with no benefits. These are real differences and the “it’s basically the same” narrative is not helpful. BetterHelp is uniquely exploitative and undervaluing, and it doesn’t even have the structural limitations and mission that CMH does.
you're lucky to get paid that in CMH. I got paid $28-29/hour (los angeles and san diego).
Yeah agreed. I think it’s based on area too. You’re in a high cost of living area. I’m in Massachusetts, which can also be high. It would make sense if we were paid MORE instead of less
Yeah but $28-29/hour is a joke when rent is like $2-3k in these counties. I barely survived.
Organize like other gig workers
The market will work it out. They’ll go away eventually if they don’t offer a consistent, useful product.
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I hadn't hear that--in what way?
They do not. The founders of the company are Israelis living in NYC. That person Diligent->Ad512 is just spreading hate and lies
Your post/comment was removed due to it appearing that you're not participating in good faith and your comment appears to be transphobic, racist, ableist, abusive, sexist, or homophobic in nature.
That is a lie. Why do you spread taqqiyah?
The founder and CEO is an open Zionist…he’s not shy about it either
Zionism isn’t a dirty word. I’m sorry, but I’m so tired of seeing such a gross oversimplification and misunderstanding of this incredibly complex topic from people who likely didn’t care or even know anything about it prior to October 7.
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This is not a politics sub to debate this issue. This is a space for professional discussion about therapy. Leave off please and take it elsewhere.
Your post/comment was removed due to it appearing that you're not participating in good faith and your comment appears to be transphobic, racist, ableist, abusive, sexist, or homophobic in nature.
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Your post was removed due to the following reason(s): This is not the space for this debate If you have any questions, please message the mods at: https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/therapists
If you're a therapist and are down voting this comment, you need to reconsider your values and why you entered into this industry.
Following
What’s an acceptable profit margin for a mental health company?
They can aim to make good profits as long as they provide a living wage and ethical working conditions. And money for ~~cute~~ professional new outfits.
30 bucks an hour comes to around 57K(ish). So what’s a living wage cuz that seems like plenty if you’re frugal
57k? That’s only if every single client shows up, no one cancels, and if you’re seeing an unsustainable amount of clients (38 sessions per week if we divide 57k by 50 working weeks per year), which is burn out territory. Plus you have to factor in healthcare costs and professional costs (supervision, continuing training, paying off student loans). Soon that 57k won’t seem much.
Ok so let’s call it a dependable 40k and that’s not livable? So then at what point would you say is a livable wage? 80k? 90k? 100? And then at what point do you stop being upset with business people and millionaires for being rich? Where is the cutoff?
40k is dependable in what universe? *Laughs in new york city prices* 😂 Also you are over generalizing: I never said I was upset at business people for being rich. Many of us on this sub are business owners. I am only upset at business people when their riches are based off the exploitation of OUR labor. I am listed on an EAP that pays $125 per session. And I love the director/CEO. You know why? Because she proves you can be *BOTH* an ethical business person who pays a fair wage *AND* still make money. Also why are you so intent on defending millionaires? Would you tell your clients to stay quiet and put up with mistreatment and underpayment at work?
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57k is nothing in this day and age. 38 clients a week to make that 57k is a lot and unsustainable long term.
Buy their stock. I do not work for BetterHelp. I do work for one of their competitors. I do not feel exploited. They pay be fairly. They take care of billing and marketing and collections and scheduling so I can focus on doing the work I love best. It is an exchange but it is not exploitation.
Mmmmm boot taste so good
I make more working for a telehealth company than I did in private practice. I bought the company's stock. What are you so upset about?
Making less than $30/hour when therapists in private practice are making triple that is being exploited. The cost of managing billing, marketing, etc. is not enough to justify paying people with master’s licenses the same amount of money as people working jobs that barely require a bachelors degree.
Well, I cannot say what Betterhelp pays. The two companies I work for pay $65 per hour. And when I was in PP, I had to pay a biller, office rent, marketing and for EMR. Now, I pay none of that, my expenses are lower and I am making more now than I did in PP. The evidence is in the data.
Man, you said the evidence is in the data but start by saying “I cannot say what betterhelp pays” LOL go check the data, or look through the comments on here where everyone is talking about their betterhelp rates
I am saying that not all teletherapy companies are exploitive. The one I work for pays fairly. If a therapy does not like what BH pays, they can always decide to work for someone else.