Virtual vs. One on One

Hi, this is David Kats, Therapist Consultants. I have a tip for you.

Eventually, the COVID-19 pandemic is going to be over. You have a decision to make. Are you going to go back to face to face patient counseling or are you going to stay online or are you going to do a combination of both? What's right for you may not be right for the next therapist, so I want to point out some advantages and disadvantages of going face to face versus going virtual.

First thing I want to talk to you about and tell you that, some therapist actually like going virtual better. Not many of them, but about 20% of the people that we talked to say they would like to stay just doing tele-mental health, as opposed to going back to one on one. That's one thing to think about. The next thing you have to think about is that, it is actually cheaper in most cases to stay with tele-mental health because you may not have a building to rent. You may not have utilities. You may not have a separate phone system. You won't have the cost involved in driving and things like that. The third thing you have to remember or think about is that, it could actually be less travel for you, like we said. You might save a half hour travel both ways everyday. It saved five hours of travel a week. There are advantages and disadvantages to staying virtual.

The biggest thing you have to remember when you're deciding whether to stay virtual or go back to one on one is, "How is my patient compliance doing?" If the average patient is staying with you during the time when you're doing tele-mental health, just like they do when you're face to face, then you can take your choice. However, if you find out that during the tele-mental health patients visits, they drop off. In other words, person gets tele-mental health may only come in five times. A person that's face to face may come in 10 times, then you'll probably have no choice but to stay with face to face for most your meetings.

Just think about it. Eventually the COVID-19 pandemic is going to be done. You got to decide what part of your practice are going to be online and what part of your practice are going to be face to face. If you use compliance as a guideline, you'll probably make the right decision.

This is Dave Kats. Thanks for listening.