The evolution of therapy has seen no more significant jump than in the past couple of years, with the boom in online counseling. Two primary platforms, BetterHelp and Talkspace, have stood out among others as an effective means for pairing clients in need of various mental health services with licensed, qualified professionals in their state, entirely online. Clients now have more flexibility and fewer roadblocks standing in their way from receiving high-quality counseling.
The benefit for clients is apparent. But what about mental health professionals such as licensed social workers, certified therapists, and other mental health professionals? No matter how you look at it, whether it be BetterHelp vs Talkspace or another platform, online counseling has proven to be an opportunity worth grasping for counselors. It provides as much flexibility for the counselor as it does for the client.
Pay Structure that BetterHelp Offers
In this article, we’ll focus specifically on the pay offered by BetterHelp. BetterHelp does not pay its counselors hourly. Instead, it operates on an engagement-based model. The exact numbers associated with this model you will discover once you begin the onboarding process with BetterHelp. If you’re not familiar with an engagement-based model, it operates on direct interactions between counselor and client. The counselor receives pay for every meaningful interaction with their client, and BetterHelp does not charge fees to any counselors.
What Qualifies as an Engagement?
There are a variety of interactions a counselor can have with their client that qualify as an engagement. Examples of these interactions include live phone sessions, journaling sessions, live video sessions, live chat sessions, worksheet assignments, asynchronous chats, and more.
The Counselor’s Involvement in an Engagement-Based Model
The counselor’s role in the engagement-based model process of payment is pretty straightforward. Since they receive payment for every engagement with their clients, the more consistent they are with checking in with their clients and scheduling sessions, and bringing in new clients, the more consistent their payments will be. The Counselors who are better in their clients’ care are typically high successful on the platform than other counselors.
BetterHelp Review and Payment for New Counselors
When counselors sign up for BetterHelp and begin receiving payment after being granted access to the platform and begin accepting and meeting with clients, access to the platform occurs after completing the onboarding process. The onboarding process consists of the following steps: clinical study assignment, video interview, credentialing process, and final interview. The counselor applying with BetterHelp will receive details of pay if they accept a position shortly after completing the clinical study assignment early on in the onboarding process. All payments occur through the counselor dashboard on the BetterHelp platform.
You will have an idea of potential pay shortly into the onboarding process. But, if you prefer to know more, you can get a rough idea by visiting BetterHelp’s Earnings Estimator Calculator. This will give you an estimate of what you may make depending on how many hours you’d like to work in a given week.
Setting Your Workload on the BetterHelp Platform
As a counselor on BetterHelp, you are entirely in charge of your workload. While BetterHelp suggests maintaining a certain amount of engagements each week, setting your goals is in your hands. A counselor can work ten hours a week, 30 hours a week, or 60 hours a week. As long as they maintain existing client relationships and accept new clients, they will find success through the platform.
Some counselors choose to use BetterHelp to augment their current in-person practice with a more flexible, online medium. Others choose to work entirely online through the platform. Online counseling gives counselors the flexibility to mix and match as much as it benefits their goals and schedules.
