How Do You Pay For Betterhelp (A Complete Guide)
This article will explain how you can pay for availing services at Betterhelp – the online mental health platform. It will cover different financial options, payment methods and the payment model the company follows. Furthermore, it will outline what services you can avail by investing your money at Betterhelp. The article will also provide some reasoning as to why some payment options are available while others or not. Lastly, this reading will also introduce the audience to Betterhelp.
How Do You Pay For Betterhelp?
You can pay for services at Betterhelp through the following methods:
- Credit Card: This is one of the options you have through which you can pay for your membership at this online company that provides mental health services
- Paypal: It is an online payment method that the company accepts.
- Financial Aid: This is an option Betterhelp provides to individuals who are not in a position to avail mental health services due to financial limitations. This financial aid can reduce your counseling fees from $280 to as low as $216 but applies to people based on their financial status and income.
We will now look at what Betterhelp is and whether or not it accepts insurance! After that we will proceed to the section where it explains how one can pay for their services.
BetterHelp – Your Online Partner In Mental Health
Betterhelp is one of the largest online platforms that provides multiple services for all types of people who are suffering from mental health problems and require counseling. What is great about this service is that it is online hence it is available anywhere and every time. You do not have to go to the doctor’s office to get an appointment or wait in line for your turn. This is great if you feel pretty down and getting out of bed is a challenge for you!
With approximately 1700 licensed therapists available online at the click of a button, Betterhelp ensures that its clients receive the best help they can get by connecting them to professional therapists and counselors who know what they need to do This is apparent by the total number of sessions which Betterhelp has already conducted from their platform; a whopping 70 million sessions already completed!
This is possible because the company understands the needs of clients well and hence provides therapy related services to them online and not just at physical location. In a world where things are changing constantly and the unknown is always around the corner, it is becoming more of a need rather than a desire to get services online and at your doorstep – we simply don’t have time nowadays!
When you visit their site, you will see that the company realizes the various situations you may be stuck in; you could be a child who needs help, a person in a relationship who feels they need to opt for couple therapy or an individual who is having a tough time facing their problems. The website also recognizes people who experience different feelings, thoughts and experiences compared to the vast majority of people; it does not judge a person based on how others are but how the person is themself! So don’t worry! You are in good hands at Betterhelp.
Does Betterhelp Accept Insurance?
Betterhelp does not accept insurance nor are its services covered by Medicare or Medicaid.
There are a number of reasons for this which have been highlighted on their website but they include the following:
- Health insurance plans have partial or limited coverage so it really isn’t useful
- In the case that your health insurance plan covers all costs of the services, the copay of insurance may be higher than the entire cost of Betterhelp’s services – this is due to the generally low cost services of Betterhelp due to it’s online nature and ease of accessibility for all.
- Clients at Betterhelp may not be able to use insurance because insurance companies often require that the diagnosis of a patient and their future treatment plans are sent to them. However, at Betterhelp service providers are not allowed to diagnose patients for a number of reasons.
- Betterhelp emphasizes that their costs for services are very low hence it is not advisable to use insurance.
How To Pay Betterhelp?
The subscription period at Betterhelp starts after you have been signed up with a counselor! Let us take a look at the process of signing up with Betterhelp and paying for their services.
Here are the steps to availing services at Betterhelp and when exactly are you required to pay for them:
- Intake Form: Information is collected about you in terms of your demographics, mental health needs and status, preferences for your counselor and what type of help you are basically looking for.
- Matching: After sufficient information has been gathered from you, the platform attempts to match you with a counselor and this may take minutes or even hours depending on your preferences, location and needs. You are matched to a counselor in your state however, if you live abroad then you are matched with a counselor in a suitable state.
- Subscription Plan: Once you are matched with a counselor, you need to select a payment option or subscription plan. After this section we will explain what options a person has.
- Payment: As a client, although your identity will be hidden from your counselor if required (you can use a nickname), you will have to provide your actual information to the company in order to pay for the services you avail. You can use paypal or your credit card.
- Start Your Sessions: Once you have subscribed, you will be given 24/7 access to your counselors. Clients are billed weekly or monthly.
What Services Does Betterhelp Offer?
Betterhelp is actually a platform that connects you to service providers who can counsel you or advise you in how to deal with your problems. The platform claims that the service providers on it’s panel do not represent the company nor are they their employees.
Although this does relieve the online giant of many responsibilities, the company makes the claim of offering the following services:
How does Betterhelp reach out to its clients? Let us take as look at the following to find out:
- Chatrooms: These are open 24/7 and you can drop a message any time you feel like doing so. However, your counselor will only get back to you once they have the time or chance to. Usually people like dropping questions they want opinions on from their counselor and don’t mind waiting a bit.
- Live Chatting Sessions: here you can chat with your counselor in real time and there really is no limit on the number of messages exchanged or time spent talking here. It depends on the needs of the client and the nature of the problem.
- Live Phone Calls: Kind of like Skype this platform has their own system set up where you can have audio sessions with your service provider. It does not show your contact details to the counselor for reasons of privacy and in case the counselor and counselee become direct.
- Video Sessions: clients who are more comfortable or want a more personalized experience can also opt for video sessions. Like other mediums of interaction, there is no limit on these although people mostly hold the opinion that 1 or 2 sessions per week are sufficient.
Subscription Vs Pay Per Session Model – Which Is Better?
There are a number of benefits of using Betterhelp’s subscription model rather than traditional pay per session models that brick and mortar clinics use. Firstly, it is much more cheap as we discussed above whereas the costs for traditional in person therapy for each session range between $60 to $150 and can vary upon the time taken.
Furthermore, as a person you do not know how many sessions you will need and how much assistance you require from your counselor. However, with Betterhelp’s model, you can avail unlimited services within a certain time period for which you have paid in lump.
Availing services and paying for each session can be financially straining and this can add to stress or the mental health issues someone is already facing. Betterhelp realizes it needs to provide services in the most comfortable manner.
Conclusion
This article looked at how an individual can pay for Betterhelp by listing what payment options are available, the process through which one signs up and pays for the services as well as what payment options are not acceptable and why. Furthermore, the article also introduced the readers to Betterhelp and what services they offer so that readers are aware of what you get for investing money here.