I Guess We're Talking About BetterHelp Again
let's all start a countdown um until better help sends me a cease and desist letter okay hi everybody thanks for coming back if you've been here before or hi welcome if you're new uh my name is mickey i'm a therapist and we talk about therapisty things on this channel today we are talking about something that i'm sure is gonna get taken down again but we're talking about it anyways because it feels very important to me um and to you know the industry of which i am a part so you saw the title you saw the thumbnail we're talking about the better help slash care dash situation there are a lot of private practice therapists who are very upset and have big feelings about this issue um rightfully so in my opinion so i want to like short shortly i want to quickly summarize uh the issue at hand for those of you who are not you know inundated with other practice therapy accounts on instagram so you guys know what it is that's going on and then i want to talk to you about why this is a concern why me personally in my own opinion as a human being have feelings about this but also um to sort of explain why other therapists like especially if you're seeing therapy content about this on the internet why those folks might feel the way that they do i want to be super [ __ ] clear from the jump i am summarizing factual information that exists on the internet and sharing my own personal feelings about those facts i am not alleging or insisting that any of the fears or feelings that i have about the facts of this matter are true are actually happening right now i am not making any statements about or for better help and i am not asserting anything with absolute certainty in this video my hope is that this video won't get cease and desisted again i'm confident that it [ __ ] will but we are going to try to make a good faith effort to share this information from a like purely fact-based perspective and a purely like me as a human being here are my feelings about the objective facts that's what we're doing let's get into it also shout out to all of the goons at betterhelp who are for sure watching this video because your boss made you sorry that you have to be here um love you the most i hope that you're getting paid a nice hourly wage to watch my content and send me a seasoned assist letter so for those of you who you know your instagram feed doesn't look like mine uh it's not filled with other therapists this is the situation at hand as far as i can tell um i have found uh statements from local chapters of the nasw which stands for national association of social workers dating back to june of this year it may have been going on earlier than that i'm not uh certain but the situation is that private practice therapists which if you don't know the difference between community mental health and private practice therapy i have a video about that up here generally private practice therapists are folks who work for themselves we own our own businesses and we have our own client case load sometimes we work in group practices where we have like maybe two or three therapists who all manage their own caseloads they all sort of manage their own business but it's very different than community mental health where like you have a large uh like office building with cubicles and rooms and like the the gross low-grade carpet that kind of a vibe private practice therapists basically work for themselves so we pay for our own advertising also this usually means that therapists have profiles on places like psychology today on therapy den on inclusive therapists on glimmer on open path collective places like that where we write up a little profile about ourselves we put some pictures of ourselves we talk about our prices our perspective and publish this on the internet for a small fee usually therapy done is free though and we put that out on the internet for the purpose of clients being able to find us so that if they want to go to therapy and they like us then we can like bingo bongo have that working relationship right therapists uh have been finding however profiles of themselves on this website called care dash uh that they didn't create this has happened to colleagues and friends of mine but i have also seen a lot of folks i've seen a lot in my dms from friends and mutuals um saying like oh my god ew i have this profile on this website called care dash i didn't make this i don't want this to be up there um i have also seen private practice therapists saying they don't have my address for my office they have my home address or they have my personal phone number listed on this this carry dash listing and i didn't make this what the [ __ ] how did this happen there like i mentioned earlier there have been statements from several local chapters of the nasw basically meaning that like the nasw the national association of social workers um this it's like a governing body for social workers like me who are therapists that help us you know abide by the rules of social work and do social work things but they also have local chapters where you can like go to trainings or meet other social workers and like you know they they do nhw stuff but smaller like in your state in your city those types of things there are a lot of local chapters of the nesw that have release statements addressing this issue because it's happened often enough that the nsw has given instructions saying if your information has appeared on this care dash website um and you didn't want it there here are your next steps uh for trying to get this information off the internet they've done this because folks have reported having a difficult time having this information removed from care dash's website i cannot speak with certainty about whether that is happening or isn't happening or whether it is hard to take down or whether it isn't hard to take down because it hasn't happened to me thankfully i removed my profile on psychology today a long time ago and so i think thankfully there's not really any information for anyone to turn into a fake care dash listing so that's kind of like generally the issue at hand but the second piece of this issue that's very important and why we're talking about better help in this video is because on these care dash listings for private practice therapists which again were not created by the therapist in some cases what will happen folks are reporting i have heard that folks are saying what happens when you click on that profile for a therapist who again did not make this profile you get redirected to betterhelp's website um folks have also stated when they express interest in working with this particular therapist let's let's just like do a little example here so it's easier to follow let's say that jane smith has this fake care dash profile that she didn't make jane didn't do this right but if you're just a regular therapy consumer and you're like wow jane smith looks so cool i want to work with her you click the button to say contact now and instead of going to jane's actual website you're getting redirected to better help folks have stated that when they express an interest in working with jane smith once they've been redirected to better help they've been told ooh sorry no availability for jane smith however here are some other therapists that you can work with through better help it's for that reason that local chapters of the nesw and other like therapy governing bodies have labeled these karadash profiles um as like factitious and false actually what is the the real thing what is it that they said maple's birthday yeah it's for this reason that several of the the complaints or the alerts put out by local chapters of the nesw have labeled these profiles um i'm gonna read to you directly from one of the ones i will link uh in the description how to find this it says okay so it labels them as an improper deceptive practice again i want to be super clear um the statements that i'm making about the types of profiles that are being made or like the impact of these profiles are like characterizing the nature of these profiles are things that i'm reading directly from other sources that already exist on the internet better help has since responded to all of the backlash um stating that kare dash is an entirely separate company that they have nothing to do with care dashes um advertising practices and that betterhelp has since terminated their involvement with care dash as like an advertising uh as a means to advertise their service a lot of people are still very upset about this though therapist in particular and i wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about why this is um a fear for a lot of folks so i know on its face especially as a therapy consumer this can feel a little bit like what's the big deal this was like a thing it seems like it's being dealt with and so like why is everybody still like up in a kerfuffle about the whole situation um and so i wanted to provide some context and some background for the potential thoughts and feelings of other folks in the therapy community and especially for myself i think it's helpful in this situation to draw your attention to a different industry that has like similar vibes as what we're dealing with in terms of the like better help talk space cerebral sort of world which is uber i have a whole bunch of links in the description for y'all to peruse at your leisure if you would like to but what we saw with uber um and lyft to a lesser degree but certainly with uber in the like early days of the company were very very low prices that were very appealing to a lot of people um a convenience factor that was very appealing to a lot of people and so uber gained traction and popularity really quickly there are so many articles to talk about like the death of the taxicab industry um and how this is sort of like shifted like the like transportation like gig economy space um since its inception the thing about this that i wanted to draw your attention to is the way that uber's practices have changed in the last few years one of the sources that i will link below talks about how prices for uber have gone up by 92 since 2018. um you may have noticed this as a consumer the prices are continuing to go up and even though it's starting to feel like maybe this is not as convenient as like a cab for example or maybe not as cheap as a cab for sure a lot of folks are continuing to use the service and so the question becomes why there are also a bunch of articles that speak about uber in in essence promising their shareholders that they are going to become a monopoly or like wanting to become a monopoly and there's very much this energy in this space of like wanting to become the only logical choice for folks who are looking for like uh transportation to and from um if you're not able to drive yourself or take public transportation so much so that even if it becomes inconvenient or too expensive or like really not your most appealing option you don't really um have the ability to choose a different option right i think this is something that a lot of people resonate with like me specifically as uh like millennial person uber has always been a thing since i've been old enough to to drive um and needed like replacement transportation somewhere uber has always been a thing now as a 27 year old adult i've literally never sat inside of a taxi cab and i quite honestly i don't even [ __ ] know how it works even if i wanted to take a cab somewhere i feel very intimidated by the idea of trying to find one or a situation like i don't [ __ ] know um and so i continue to use uber because the app is on my phone because it's easy and like it's just like the way right this is very much a cultural shift and especially if you didn't exist in the world or you weren't driving at the time that this became a thing um it's not really something that we think about a lot right the reason that i am drawing your attention to this is because it's an important pattern for us to observe when we talk about the gig economy seeping into other professions and other areas of life this is something that we at least me specifically have concerns about and i have heard these concerns echoed by other therapists in this space um about the like digitizing of therapy telemedicine is one thing like private practice therapists and community mental health health therapists um practicing telemedicine for the purpose of like uh safety now even like during the pandemic but also for convenience and the sake of like meeting folks where they're at that's one thing but the like app based telemedicine and mental health services are like another thing entirely because again we talked about this in the original video that got taken down excuse me that i chose to take down because i was sent a cease and desist letter we talked about this there but i don't even remember what i was saying oh there there's a distinct difference between app-based therapy and private practice therapists especially private practice therapists who work for themselves and only have a caseload for themselves there are also like other concerns that i can't really talk about here because i'd like this video to stay on the internet um hopefully folks who have like been here and are like are around um can fill you in in the comments if you have questions about it but the difference there is very important because when we talk about labor practices in regards to skilled labor it's important to explore how different the quality of care that one might receive or the quality of services that one might receive differs in these two environments we see this happening with uber especially where prices have continued to go up since 2018 they're continuing to rise now especially as gas gets more expensive and yet uber drivers are not being paid a living wage this is a statement that uber has made over and over again that the company will be profitable once it reaches full scale and we're not there yet and so drivers can't expect it to be paid a living wage and yet consumers are paying more and more and more money for something that is again like increasingly less convenient and less of an appealing option and so like the question in that scenario is like where's the money going i don't think it takes a lot of reach to figure out where that money is going in that scenario um and also to explore like how that impacts the quality of life of the person who is actually providing the service directly to the consumer particularly with uber there are lots of people who work for uber or drive for uber sorry if you can hear my dog by the way the like not so ideal working conditions uh that come along with working in the app and how this again like affects the service that's then being provided from the like driver directly to the consumer the concern for a lot of private practice therapists as app-based mental health services become more and more prevalent is that this is an issue that might potentially affect our ability to effectively work for ourselves in essence what i'm telling you is that some of the fears that therapists have about app-based mental health services are that it may become uber-like in its scale but also in its inevitability and the fears that we as private practice therapists will have no choice but to migrate to app-based therapy services in you know hopes of being able to make enough money to feed ourselves there are very real concerns and fears that folks have about the pattern that has been displayed by large telemedicine companies um in these like repeated acquisitions of smaller companies and sort of like gobbling up these little service providers to become part of this larger conglomerate and again the fear here is like where does this stop and at what point does it end um and are we as like small independent private practice therapists going to be able to make a viable living without signing on to work with these larger you know like proverbial powers that be in the telemedicine space i guess what i'm saying to simplify is that the fear that i have and some other therapists have is that we will become the taxi cab drivers in this like therapy space uh where the work and the services that we provide are no longer sought out or like able to be sought out by consumers because the larger you know like corporate conglomerate has taken up so much space in this industry that consumers just no longer seek out these services in in particular a lot of folks are upset savannah for [ __ ] sake in particular uh the care dash better help situation was concerning to a lot of folks because of this presence of this button where someone would press uh check availability or like you know connect with this therapist or what the [ __ ] ever um and then the consumers being redirected to better help without you know like anyone really understanding that that's not the intention here a lot of the fear that folks have is about the barrier to entry for working with a private practice therapist who's not associated with a larger telemedicine conglomerate becoming so severe that it is then like almost not really financially viable to work for yourself and being forced back into community mental health or being forced into working for the larger telemedicine conglomerate i am also going to link a whole bunch of stuff in the description about a company called teledoc teledoc is this very large telemedicine company that is making money hand over fist um and they are better helps parent company uh teledoc acquired better help in 2015 um and absorbed betterhelp's ceo as part of their um staff i guess and teledoc has demonstrated a pretty concerning history in terms of acquiring smaller companies i actually i'm just gonna link the wikipedia below but also all of the supporting um data because teledoc has acquired company after company after company after company in again what is like a very concerning pattern to a lot of folks because they're continuing to acquire companies that sort of run the gamut in terms of like health and mental health care this is also a pattern that other folks have spoken about with better help in terms of better help acquiring therapist directories so for example all of the ones that i list in my description um and all of the therapist directories that i will recommend to y'all are directories that are not owned by betterhelp they are owned by themselves like therapy dan for example is owned by jeff and another co-owner whose name escapes me openpath collective is owned by the people who work for and with openpath collective and that's it and that's the reason that i recommend them to you because they as directories are allowing therapists to advertise for themselves so like for example when i had a profile on psychology today that profile linked you directly to me i don't work for a larger company who then disburses clients to me you literally just get my [ __ ] email address better help in the past has acquired therapist directories or paid to be in therapist directories um and the fear is that in doing so and again with teledoc acquiring company after company after company at what point are we going to reach the space where again like therapists become the taxi drivers of this equation this care dash situation was the first time at least to my knowledge first time that i've seen this happening in such a upfront and bold way where they literally stole people's information off of public places like npis and like other therapist directories and used it to advertise their own service a lot of people felt very violated by this and a lot of therapists felt very fearful about how our digital information is being like used against us essentially again i want to be super clear i'm not alleging that any of the fears that i have are the intentions or like the intent or the actual actions that better help or teledoc are taking on purpose i'm simply speaking about my feelings and my opinions and the fears that i have heard echoed by colleagues and friends of mine but i do want to encourage folks to especially as therapy consumers to be mindful i know that there is already like a huge onus on therapy consumers and in a way this is kind of therapist fault not this specifically but like because therapy is an institution it's like a larger field has been really slow to adapt to times and to become technologically available to our clients um this is kind of a side effect of us being slow moving and not appropriately meeting the needs of our clients and so this large company with billions of dollars swooped in to sort of fill the void but and i also want to encourage consumers especially if you you know have a bad taste in your mouth from large corporate telemedicine or from working with community mental health please know there is a shortage of therapists right now but there are private practice therapists who very much want to work with you and want to connect with you and there are still places to find them if you are a person who does not want to work with better help or teledoc or you know community mental health or like whatever there are options there are places on the internet for you to find these therapists and to find services that you can afford that work for you find a therapist that resonates with you who will get you and even though it does feel like it's becoming increasingly difficult to do so it is not impossible to do that again i will always link uh sources and directories and places for you to find those therapists in my description um and to my knowledge all of those are again like safe places for you to do that um and if that changes at any point in time i will be removing them but for now those are all safe and reliable places to find good therapists and i also wanted to give the caveat here too i probably should have done this at the beginning but whatever if you are a person who currently uses better help for therapy or you are a therapist who works for better help or someone who advertises with better help or teledoc or like you know any of these like larger corporate companies this is not shade or like me telling you that you suck or you shouldn't be doing that my primary concern is folks getting the help that they need and that they deserve i do very much want to honor and recognize that better help serves a purpose for some folks um and that it is the most convenient option for some folks and if that works for you that's fine you're not a bad person you're not personally contributing to the downfall of therapy as we know it that's not the assertion that i'm making here my concern and my goal is in folks being able to find therapists and therapy and to you know connect folks with the places that they want to go and so if you want to work with betterhelp that's your prerogative as an adult hopefully adult human being and i'm not at all casting judgment on that decision however again i do just want to be clear if that doesn't call to you or you don't like that or you don't want to work with them there are other options that are available to you and so please be aware that this uh larger rhetoric that like betterhelp is the option and the traditional therapy sucks or isn't attainable that's not true it is very much attainable regular therapies do sometimes suck but all therapists you know sometimes suck it doesn't matter if you're working for better help or not um there are still good therapists who are willing to work with you and you can find them so that's it let's all start a countdown um until better help send me a cease and desist letter as a like you know end of video throw away if you do want to read the season is this letter in full by the way um or you just want to support me in the channel you can become a patron the link for that is also in the description i uh appreciate all the love and support from my patrons always but especially for topics like this where like i can't put an advertisement on this video um i can't bank on the adsense from this video at all and so if you want to support the channel in any way that's a great way to do that so thank you for all of you who do that i hope that you enjoyed the video like the video if you liked the video subscribe to the channel leave me some comments letting me know how you think and feel um i would love to have a productive and kind and respectful conversation with y'all about it and that's it share the video to help the channel grow and to help each other grow and i will see you guys next saturday
2022-08-15 12:00
