Benefits to Healthcare Professionals

⦁ Online referrals: 

From a wide range of professionals creating additional revenue streams. Easy referrals to other professionals.

⦁ Information Management: 

Online client records, reports, referral letters, sick notes, appointment schedules, notifications, rescheduling appointments online, etc. After your appointment, you will have access to replay your video or voice call, whereby you can review your sessions to ensure maximum effect.

⦁ Mental health support for healthcare workers: 

Dealing with stress, compassion fatigue, burnout, grief, as well as tips on offering support to COVID patients and families. Self-care tips.

⦁ Therapist Safety: 

Physical safety of professionals by avoiding dangerous situations.

⦁ Professionals can live remotely: Professionals can avoid residing in less than ideal or unsafe living situations or staying many kilometres away with long commute times, which is also not ideal for therapist mental well-being. Teletherapy completely erases this concern and the need to be tied to a large city and the problems that can come with crime, overcrowding, noise pollution, and so forth.

⦁ Scheduling Flexibility: 

Accommodating patients during severe weather, Covid-19 limitations and against all obstacles, one of the biggest benefits of teletherapy for therapists is the ability to accommodate a larger range of appointment times with little to no impact on their well-being. You can better accommodate clients with demanding and ever-changing schedules without ending up with an unexpected two-hour block of wasted time.

⦁ Spare Capacity: 

When time efficiency is increased, the therapist ability to engage in other professional and personal endeavours is also improved which in turn makes for a more well-rounded therapist. We all know that when it comes to picking any professional, we prefer the one that is immersed in the latest developments and is constantly self-educating and growing. You can access additional training in EMDR. Maybe you want to teach an online course. The options are endless and there is finally time to do it! When you cut out one hour a week of commuting, that’s five precious hours right there that can easily be redirected to fulfilling professional endeavours and adjuncts to your therapy work.

⦁ Clinician Overheads Minimized: 

One of the biggest sources of anxiety for many private practitioners is overheads. Between rent, utilities, furniture, liability insurance and all the other costs of doing business, many therapists can quickly get overwhelmed and rule-out private practice altogether. Teletherapy can be a low- to no-cost way of private practice.

⦁ Sick Building Syndrome Eliminated: 

Sick building syndrome is very real. You may recall many an evening coming home with a pounding headache, nausea, dry skin, and a general malaise that I just couldn’t quite put my finger on. While you may be particularly sensitive to my environment, plenty of office workers suffer from environmental toxins in the workplace.

⦁ Reduction in exposure to Illness: 

Especially during Covid 19, teletherapy can be a lifesaver for both clients and therapists. During the cold winter months, sharing tight quarters with ill patients with poor airflow is a perfect recipe for illness. While many employees rejoice at the excuse to stay home, for the self-employed, sick days are never paid and can have a challenging domino effect on the caseload at large. Limiting exposure altogether can be helpful. Further, for clinicians who themselves may be a sensitive population exposure to flu viruses can be highly dangerous.

⦁ Employment Opportunities for Special Population Therapists: 

Another major benefit of teletherapy is in fact that pregnant women can continue to safely practice therapy while having adequate access to breaks and resting in a way that an office environment might not be fully suited to support. Those who are semi-retired or have other physical limitations can still see patients just as any other therapists would. It also allows for more opportunities for part-time therapists and working mothers who might have other barriers to being employed in a traditional office setting.

⦁ Alternative Way of Seeing Potentially Violent Patients:  

Having teletherapy as an option can be a low-risk way of connecting with patients in need who also might have a history of violence.

⦁ Decrease in Miscommunications: 

Teletherapy combined with online scheduling and billing systems can significantly decrease the risk of miscommunications. Appointment reminders can go out electronically, while patients can access and manage their appointments instantaneously. An assistant creates a third channel for which miscommunication and confusion to arise. There were phone calls and conversations where assistants said one thing and clients said something else. Trying to manage this impacted not only professionalism but put the therapeutic relationship and trust at risk. By having everything clear and in writing automated, such miscommunications are significantly decreased.

⦁ Therapist Anonymity Increased: 

One of the amazing things about teletherapy is the ability to work across an entire state where you are licensed. A constant concern for many therapists (and clients alike) is the fear of running into clients in public spaces. Working remotely, or even listing your city somewhere you do not live significantly increased therapist anonymity. Therapists naturally become very protective when they had young children or spouses. They do not want that layer of their lives exposed to a particular client for reasons specific to the therapeutic work. Constantly being paranoid about run-ins can be taxing, and teletherapy can help to eliminate this.

⦁ Access to Own Facilities: 

Finally, a noted benefit for clients and therapists is access to one’s own facilities. Anyone who has worked from home even to do paperwork knows they eat healthier with their own refrigerator and can even powernap to get more energy between tasks. The ability to open the window for fresh air in a home office, turn up the heat, and generally be more comfortable enables any therapist to truly work at their A game.

⦁ New Markets: 

Some people are more likely to attempt therapy if it’s online. Many of my patients feel very uncomfortable in real space, so having this medium to practice in where they don’t feel obligated to follow social norms makes it a lot easier. Aspects of virtual counselling for certain populations have advantages over traditional face-to-face therapy