I’m a Psychologist Who Tested Teladoc for One Month — Here’s What Happened

Over the past few years I’ve tried dozens of different online therapy platforms. As a psychologist, it’s a challenge for me to get support for my mental health when I’m already professionally connected to many providers in my area. I also work long hours and appreciate the convenience of getting therapy in the comfort of my own home. And I’m not alone in liking the convenience teletherapy offers.

Teladoc offers primary care, support for diabetes and hypertension, nutritionist services, psychiatry, and therapy — but it also owns BetterHelp, arguably one of the best-known online therapy platforms operating today. So would it be effective at providing quality mental health care? I tried Teladoc’s therapy services for one month to find out.

Teladoc’s home page has eye-catching and positive statistics about its services and platform. It states that Teladoc is the “most recognized” brand in telemedicine, though I’m not sure how the company measured this. There’s a sign-up button at the top of the page and links with information for Individuals, Organizations, and Clinicians.

Sign-Up Difficulties

I chose not to use my insurance, though, which created some challenges with the sign-up process. When I entered my name and birth date, it automatically populated my insurance information, which surprised me. I didn’t have an option to deselect my policy or opt out of using insurance. Eventually, I was prompted to call customer service to resolve the situation.

The customer service representative was friendly and helpful, but I would have preferred to not make a phone call. I was told that clients who want to opt out of using their health insurance must use a different sign-up form. However, after I hung up I began filling out the new form, and it automatically pulled up my insurance again!

I called a second time and was directed to a different Teladoc website. I selected that I wanted therapy and was asked if I had diabetes, any history of high blood pressure, and if I was pregnant. After I selected “no” to all three, it told me I was not eligible for therapy with Teladoc. It didn’t provide other recommendations or referrals for therapy and didn’t explain why my answers supposedly disqualified me.

On my third phone call to customer support they told me I needed a “direct to consumer” account through Teladoc to receive therapy without using my insurance.

This time I was able to sign up after the representative gave me the correct link. I later went back to the main website to search for information about “direct to consumer” accounts or the appropriate link that I needed, but I was unable to find it. Honestly, if I were not reviewing Teladoc I would have quit the sign-up process before calling customer support for the second time.

Intake Questions

When I finally created the correct account, I answered questions about my personal and family history. There was a list of conditions with checkboxes and demographic questions. Most seemed standard to me, but I was also asked to enter the first day of my last period, which seemed really odd — and I could not skip this question. I’ve never had a therapist request information about my menstrual cycle, and with the current political climate in South Dakota, I was uncomfortable with this.

After I finished providing this information, I was told I could choose my provider from “a list,” but the list consisted of one provider profile. (I assumed this meant that there was only one Teladoc therapist licensed in South Dakota accepting new patients when I tested the service.) As a South Dakotan, this wasn’t the first time that a telehealth platform only had one provider in my state. In fact, there have been a number of times when I wasn’t able to use a virtual platform because they didn’t have any providers licensed to practice in South Dakota. Fortunately, the therapist listed had a specialized certification in the issue I wanted to discuss in therapy, which was fantastic and put me at ease.

Scheduling an Appointment

After I selected my therapist, instead of choosing an appointment time from the therapist’s calendar, I had to provide the days of the week I was available and whether I preferred a morning or afternoon appointment. Since my schedule was quite full, I struggled to find days when I could be available for “the morning” or “the afternoon.”

When I selected times, I got a response within 30 minutes with a proposed session time, and I had the option to accept the appointment or request a different time. The time worked for me, so I confirmed.

After accepting the appointment, I received a chat message indicating it was from my therapist, but it was actually a generic response confirming the appointment time and informing me that there was a 24-hour cancellation rule, with a $50 cancellation fee. I also had to provide payment information in order to hold the appointment time.

Overall, with the difficulties finding the right link and multiple calls to customer service, it took about 90 minutes to get signed up — far longer than I’ve ever had to spend to get onboarded with a new teletherapy service.

I attended three sessions with Teladoc over the course of one month. I confirmed my payment information when I booked each appointment, and I was able to schedule directly with my therapist at the end of each session. Teladoc gave the option for video or audio-only sessions, and I selected video because that’s my personal preference. Each session was 45 minutes long.

Teladoc has a secure messaging platform, and I could send my provider encrypted messages between appointments if needed. This might be helpful for some people because certain therapeutic approaches involve more contact between sessions, such as if my therapist had given me homework or activities to work on and I had questions or feedback. However, I didn’t use it as part of my therapy through Teladoc: I primarily used it to confirm appointments. My therapist made it clear that the messaging system wasn’t meant for crisis or therapeutic conversations, and the national crisis line (988) was listed.

My First Session

I received a text message reminding me about my appointment 48 hours before it started. I also received a text right before my appointment started prompting me to log in. It was a simple process, and I didn’t have difficulty navigating the platform or joining my session.

My therapist arrived at the exact time the session was scheduled to start. She began by reviewing the informed consent and providing me with her credentials. She then asked about my reasons for coming to therapy and shared that she had additional training in my main presenting concern.

She then asked some specific questions about my mental health history but focused mainly on my presenting issue. We discussed therapy goals, and she balanced providing suggestions with encouraging me to articulate what I hoped to get from therapy with her. She came across as personable and flexible.

At the end of our session she gave me the option to schedule a follow-up or conduct sessions on an as-needed basis, and we scheduled a follow-up session in one week.

After My Session

After my first session (and each session after that) I received a summary of my appointment, which appeared to be my provider’s progress notes about our session. The notes were not very detailed, but the information included was accurate. The amount of detail that therapists include in their progress notes varies, and sometimes insurance companies require that certain information be included, but since I paid out of pocket, the therapist had more flexibility with the documentation.

My Next Sessions

My therapist seemed to allow me to take the lead in the following sessions, encouraging me to share what was on my mind and what I wanted us to focus on. Then she brought up my presenting issue and discussed how she could help and support me, though she mostly allowed me to control the direction of our discussions.

She also provided me with information about my concern, including recommendations for how to cope with what I was going through and information on mental health outcomes. I found it helpful to get this information directly from someone certified in that area because information from an internet search can be unreliable.

I really enjoyed meeting with my therapist and found our sessions useful, and the 45-minute length felt sufficient (in addition to being the generally accepted standard).

Overall, I was impressed with her knowledge related to my specific presenting issue and the compassion she showed during our appointments. At the end of our final session she was in agreement with me that as-needed appointments were appropriate, and she made sure I knew I could schedule another session with her at any time if I felt I needed to.

Additional Resources

The Teladoc website includes a library of more than 1,000 health-related resources, including articles, videos, and other educational tools. These are free to access even if you’re not a client. You can browse topics or search for specific content. Categories include Manage Your Health, Eat Well, and Strengthen Your Body and Mind. Mental health resources seemed to be mostly under Strengthen Your Body and Mind.

Using the search feature I found that there were 800 results for “mental health.” I also found 40 resources listed for “depression” and 42 listed for “anxiety.” When I searched for “stress,” 265 articles came up.

However, not every topic had such an extensive resource list available. For example, although Teladoc lists trauma as one of its therapy specializations, only nine articles came up when I searched “trauma,” and some of those articles simply mentioned the word trauma but were not actually focused on this topic. ADHD only had one result: an article about the effects of exercise on mental health.

There were many articles about medical conditions that Teladoc supports, including 353 results for “diabetes,” 487 results for “blood pressure,” 812 results for “skin health,” 246 results for “nutrition,” and 44 results for “hypertension.”

Teladoc also offers primary care, nutritionist services, and psychiatric services. Clients who need medical treatment in addition to support for their mental health can benefit from receiving multiple services through the same platform.

Psychiatry

Psychiatric services at Teladoc include a variety of options. However, like its therapy offerings, Teladoc’s FAQ page has limited information about the psychiatric services offered and doesn’t clearly list the cost without insurance. While the FAQs don’t list a phone number to call for further information about psychiatric services, the website does list an 800 number and email address in the Contact Us section.

Teladoc employs psychiatrists who work with clients to figure out if medication is right for them and what medication to prescribe, which could be a valuable complementary service for someone pursuing therapy at Teladoc.

However, there are limitations to the medications Teladoc providers can prescribe based on federal regulations.

Teladoc physicians can prescribe antidepressants, sedatives, certain ADHD medications, and medication to treat chemical dependence, but it cannot prescribe any controlled mental health medications, including stimulants (like Adderall or Ritalin) or benzodiazepines (like Xanax, Valium, or Klonopin.)

Condition Management

Teladoc also has a program called Condition Management, which was previously called Livongo, which is designed to help manage chronic medical conditions like diabetes and hypertension. The program is included with employer benefits, and if your employer offers this benefit you do not have to pay anything for this service. This program includes individual sessions with a “certified coach,” an action plan for the client’s health goals, individualized recommendations for care, diabetes testing supplies, and food tracking. The site indicates that program participants also get access to Teladoc’s library of resources, but it appears that this library is also free to the general public.

Teladoc uses a fee-for-service model, and you pay for the sessions you use. As such, you can cancel services by just not scheduling additional appointments. I received follow-up emails encouraging me to schedule when I did not make new appointments, but these stopped when I clicked “unsubscribe.”

I’ve tried many different online therapy platforms, including Brightside, Doctor On Demand, Online-Therapy.com, Talkspace, and BetterHelp. I found that Teladoc had some advantages and disadvantages compared to other sites.

Online-Therapy.com and Brightside also both recommend committing to a specific number of sessions, which might not line up with someone’s needs or fit in their budget. Teladoc’s self-pay cost per session is comparable to Talkspace, but Teladoc sessions are longer: 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes. Its fee per session is about what Doctor On Demand charges for a 20-minute session. With Teladoc, you get more time with your provider for your money. Also, unlike Online-Therapy.com, BetterHelp, and ReGain, Teladoc is in network with most insurance plans and accepts insurance payments directly.

At the same time, I had more trouble navigating Teladoc’s sign-up process than I’ve ever had before. The main issue I ran into was trying to self-pay, and I think the process would have gone more smoothly if I had chosen to use insurance. It would be useful for Teladoc to let clients choose if they want to add their insurance or at least give them the option to deselect their policy. I would also have preferred to choose a set appointment time rather than providing my general availability and being sent an appointment later.

I was also concerned to be asked for the date of my last menstrual cycle as part of the intake process. Again, I’ve never been asked this question by a therapist before, and many clients who menstruate might feel uncomfortable providing this information if it’s not absolutely necessary for their treatment. Despite these concerns, I loved my therapist. She had the exact expertise that I needed at that moment in time, and I felt like we connected really well.

Overall, my experience with Teladoc was positive — once I was able to get through the sign-up process. My therapist had specialized training in my presenting issue and was compassionate. I appreciated the flexibility of the services provided and felt empowered to express my needs and get them met.

Teladoc accepts many insurance plans, and its self-pay rate for therapy services is affordable compared to other online therapy platforms offering similar services. However, I would like to see the company display this information in a way that’s easier to find on the website. The resource library is a huge asset, though Teladoc may benefit from adding more information specific to mental health.

Finally, the program specifically tailored to people living with a chronic illness could be a massive source of support. Adequate emotional and mental health support can be instrumental in ensuring that they have the resources and capacity to follow their medical treatment plans.

I would see my Teladoc therapist again in the future, should the need arise. I would also recommend this platform to people using their insurance to cover their mental health care costs and those struggling with chronic medical conditions.