Remote Therapy

I’m really conflicted about it. It’s April 18, and it’s been about a month since my therapy went remote. Total, I’ve had 7 appointments (4 by phone, 3 over Zoom). I think it’s going pretty well. The quality of care hasn’t changed and I’ve been able to book consistent weekly times.

There is something to be said about the comfort of somebody else’s office. It can be a way to separate therapy from the rest of life. That said, it’s becoming harder to justify. A phone call or Zoom takes 45 minutes, and that’s it. Visits take an extra 20 or 30 minutes for travel. All that extra time adds up, especially with weekly therapy. It can feel like a cinder block in one’s schedule.

If not for coronavirus, therapy would be more inconvenient. In 12 years of patient experience, remote services have never been offered. Therapists have always made it clear they could be contacted by phone or email in crisis, but that was it. Until recently, my therapy has been conducted exclusively in a doctor’s office. The technology I’m using now for remote sessions has been around for a long time. Nothing’s really changed except the branding. But during this pandemic, insurance companies have given the green light to remote therapy sessions.

I’m frustrated because there’s little incentive to go back to therapy the way it was. It’s going about the same now as it always has. I’m grateful for my therapists but I don’t know how going to their offices again is going to improve treatment. I can’t figure out why insurance companies and providers couldn’t figure out a way to bill for these appointments before lockdown. If it’s a question of attendance, pretty sure a lot of different entities have my contact information, social, and 207 cell phone number. There’s so much service-level and metadata being collected for each remote appointment, it should be pretty easy for providers to furnish an invoice.

I believe there is a time and place for in-person therapy. I imagine for providers, especially early on, meeting in-person with a patient is beneficial, or in a time of crisis. But when it’s consistent for months, remote sessions should suffice, if the patient prefers. I’m a little bothered by the idea that it took a quarantine to make my mental health care more convenient. I prefer it this way and I don’t want to feel like I’m somehow rooting for the world to remain in its current state. But the reality is, as soon as lockdown is over, there’s a good chance I’m going to have to cut down on therapy because it will be much harder to fit in-person sessions into my schedule. And the appointments I can make happen will require about 50 percent more time for the same service.

Coronavirus is exposing how outdated and poorly conceived certain systems have become. There’s an opportunity here to make adjustments and take advantage of the technology we have on, perhaps, a different scale. I don’t want to feel guilty anymore about being in no rush for things to return to “normal.” Normally, my mental health care is inconvenient. Now, it seems to be working a little bit more for me. It’s had the ability to function this way, but it took a tragedy on a global scale to spur positive change. The word that comes to mind: embarrassing.