TILT – Therapeutic Innovations in Light of Technology
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Unlock Cou Jay Ostrowski
Counselors can be really creative when helping clients brainstorm solutions to problems. We’re great at helping others see from a new point of view and identifying new options. With the threat of significant changes in the healthcare industry, perhaps it is time to use those same skills to create new helping paradigms with our clients. Much of our current way of working in the counseling industry is the not the result of research or best practices, but of the allowable parameters imposed by the health insurance industry decades ago. Savvy therapists who see clients on a cash basis are now using technology in creative ways to offer more clientcentric services that break with the insurance tradition.
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Therapists are also weaving online counseling into face-toface services for the growing number of clients whose insurance now pays for online therapy. Technology is changing a lot of things in society, and therapy is clearly one of them. We now have lots of HIPAA/ HITECH compliant software to deliver services online. To
date there are over a hundred software platforms used for online therapy and over 300 dedicated Apps for mental health care. With the revision of mental health laws allowing online therapy, counselors and psychologists are re-thinking how they provide services. Twenty states now mandate the same reimbursement for face-to-face and HIPAA compliant video therapy