Is Online Counseling Worth It for Counselors
Are you developing a profitable online counseling psychotherapy practice? Good for you!
Many licensed mental health professionals are aggressively developing online counseling practices. Not only is it a viable alternative to face-to-face counseling, it has been a solution for COVID-19 impact on delivering treatment.
The quickest way to do this can be through the online counseling platforms.
Many clients prefer online counseling. In large metro areas, they can avoid the traffic commute. It often reduces late cancellations.
Examples of these are BetterHelp, Regain (owned by BetterHelp), PrideCounseling (LGBTQ) and TeenCounseling.com (parents and teens).
But are they lucrative and a good source of referrals? Most importantly, are they legit?
The short answer: most of them are credible and highly rated by clients.
How much do the platforms pay counselors.
The Cons of Online Counseling for Therapists
Heavily slanted to the clients advantage. Many online counseling platforms do not make a clear statement about practice across state lines. The general answer is that you can see therapists in states the client resides without a license. Because therapists assume to online platforms cover them as therapists, they rely on this as accurate information. The online counseling platforms are heavily leaned to the client/customers advantage. The terms of service include that it is the therapists responsibility to know the law and ethics of their practice and will hold harmless the online platform (clients theoretically cannot sue them).
