Episode #771: What the Platforms Are Like

Summary

Abundant Practice Podcast

Episode #771: What the Platforms Are Like

Host: Allison Perier

Air Date: July 1, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Allison Perier hosts a candid panel discussion with therapists Karen, Kenzie, and Amanda about their real-life experiences working on popular therapy platforms (like Alma, Rula, Headway, and similar companies). The episode dives into what it’s actually like to use these platforms as a transitional step into private practice, the hidden downsides (from inconsistent payments to ethical concerns), emotional hurdles in moving to private pay, and key lessons learned. Allison and guests aim to provide honest support to therapists stuck in the “platform trap,” highlighting both practical and psychological barriers to going independent.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Therapists Join Platforms

• Purpose as a “Stopgap”: Many panelists joined platforms to bridge the gap as they built private client bases, viewing platforms as a temporary solution.

  • Karen started with a platform as a buffer while starting her private practice, aiming for eventual full private pay.
    • “My plan was to just have it be kind of a buffer as I begin private practice… to start on the platform so that when I’m ready to leave, I don’t have to worry about depaneling myself with the insurances…” (03:20)

• Ease of Entry: Platforms made it easier to enter private practice without having to learn everything at once.

  • Allison acknowledges:
    • “They've done that. They've made it easy to get into private practice.” (09:02)

2. Major Issues: Money, Transparency, and Client Experience

• Lack of Transparency: Platforms often gave inaccurate or unclear information about client billing and therapist pay.

  • Karen: “They were inconsistent… the platform wasn’t communicating clear. It just seemed like they were trying to get over on her or something.” (04:10)
  • Kenzie: “There were some issues with not being totally straightforward or clear about the payment that my clients had to make. Like, it was wrong a lot of times...” (10:13)

• Lower Pay & Pay Cuts: Therapists were surprised by pay cuts, fluctuating reimbursement rates, and hidden platform profits.

  • Kenzie: “It’s scarier to stay on insurance because it feels like I’m going to keep getting a pay cut and a pay cut and a pay cut year after year.” (13:10)
  • Allison provides numbers:
    • “...the allowed amount was $235. So the client hadn’t met their deductible, so they were paying the company $235. The therapist was getting $110 per session.” (17:45)

• Poor Client Support: Therapists could not always access information to help clients resolve billing issues.

  • Karen: “I didn’t have any access to any of that [billing information]… That was frustrating. And then, of course, they paid lower as well.” (05:22)

• Clients Paying More on Platforms: Surprising discovery that clients sometimes paid more than private pay rates through platforms.

  • Kenzie: “I wish I knew that some of my clients were going to be paying more money than even what my private pay rate is and definitely more money than what I’m getting paid.” (24:24)

3. Platform Practices: Tech Companies vs. Mental Health Clinics

• Ethics & Data Privacy Concerns:

  • Allison: “They are tech companies. They're not mental health clinics… They don’t have to follow our ethics.” (09:36)
  • Amanda: “Now they are who they are owning the data. Are they training their AI models on information? ...It just feels like the walls are closing in.” (15:36)

• Shifting Focus to Investors over Providers:

  • Allison: “As soon as venture capital becomes involved, the focus shifts from making customers happy to making investors happy.” (01:28)

• Convoluted Credentialing and Pressure Tactics:

  • Karen: “I had to really get kind of a little gangster in my emails. They were tripping, and I was like, y’all just go ahead and just scratch me off. This is... We’re not doing this. I will not be bullied…” (21:43)

4. Emotional and Practical Barriers to Leaving Platforms

• Guilt and Client Attachment: Therapists feel a sense of responsibility to their clients and guilt over potentially losing access.

  • Kenzie: “Now I’m dealing with the guilt and, like, the emotionalness of having to be like, I’m sorry, I can’t take your insurance anymore, and now you have to pay private pay.” (11:40)
  • Amanda echoed similar sentiments.

• Learning Curve and Marketing Fears:

  • Allison: “...they don’t know how to market. They don’t know how to set up their own infrastructure for their practice because it was kind of required that it be their infrastructure on these platforms.” (18:25)
  • Amanda: “I do have some experience with marketing… I can only imagine how intimidating that is… It’s suffocating.” (19:19)

5. Practical Experiences: Surprises, Pros, and Cons

• Referral Drought After Onboarding Period:

  • Amanda: “I got a lot of referrals in the beginning, and then they just dry up after a few months.” (13:41)
  • Kenzie: “At first I was getting sent all of these referrals… and then those stopped or the referrals I was getting were so inappropriate, not even remotely close to my specialty…” (10:48)

• Hidden Details in Payment Structures:

  • Karen: “What I wish I would have known [is] that their flat rate was not a flat rate for all sessions, like a 45 minute session versus a 60 minute session.” (26:00)

6. Key Lessons and Takeaways

• Ask More Questions Upfront:

  • Karen: “I wish I would have known to ask more specific questions… before joining that platform.” (27:28)

• Platforms Can Help Networking, But Aren’t Essential:

  • Kenzie: “…I’ve met a lot of therapists through these networks, but we can do that outside of the platforms. Like, we don’t need the platforms for those.” (25:15)

• Most Panelists Are Exiting or Planning to Exit Platforms:

  • Allison: “I’m excited that y’all are all on your way to being off of them and you’ve all got private pay clients… there are a lot of therapists out there who haven’t even started walking.” (27:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Karen on Client Frustration with Platforms:

  “...Then she was like, I would just rather just pay you. You get all of that money and I’m done with that. That place. I don’t want to communicate with them anymore.” (04:27)

• Amanda on Platforms and Data:

  “Now they are who they are owning the data. You know, like who owns this data? Are they training their AI models on information? ...It just feels like the walls are closing in.” (15:36)

• Allison on Venture Capital:

  “As soon as venture capital becomes involved, the focus shifts from making customers happy to making investors happy. Prices go way up. Innovation plateaus…” (01:28)

• Karen on Platform Onboarding Pressure:

  “But then I felt like they were bullying me the entire onboarding. Hurry up… you need to hurry up and give me. Bring clients over here…” (21:43)

• Allison on Guilt and Leaving Clients:

  “It feels unfair that you have to, like, choose between… your well being and your clients.” (13:27)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:00 – Karen describes using platforms as a stopgap and hidden struggles
• 04:10 – Issues with transparency and platform-client communication
• 09:54 – Kenzie: Initial attraction to high reimbursement, then reality sets in
• 11:40 – Emotional burden and guilt over transitioning clients off insurance
• 13:41 – Amanda: Early referral boost then sharp decline
• 15:36 – Amanda on data privacy and discomfort with platform motives
• 17:45 – Allison’s “follow the money” breakdown of how platforms profit at therapists’ expense
• 18:25 – The overwhelming learning curve for therapists moving off platforms
• 21:43 – Karen’s experience with onboarding pressure
• 24:24 – Kenzie wishes she’d known some clients would be charged more than private rates
• 26:00 – Platform pay structure surprises
• 27:28 – Allison’s hope for listeners and final encouragement

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Final Encouragement

Allison and the guests finish with optimism, stressing that building a sustainable, private practice is possible, even if daunting. The episode validates the struggle, acknowledges emotional as well as logistic obstacles, and emphasizes the importance of transparency, self-advocacy, and peer support.

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For therapists considering leaving platforms or building private pay practices:
You’re not alone. The journey can be hard, but resources and community support are available to help you shift to a more joyful, financially sustainable, and autonomous practice.

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Transcript

[Karen]

Foreign.

[Alison]

Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm Alison from Abundance Practice Building. I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping therapists build sustainable, joy filled private practices, just like I've done for tens of thousands of therapists across the world. I'm excited to help you too. If you want to fill your practice with ideal clients, we have loads of free resources and paid support. Go to abundance practice building.com Links all right, onto the show

[Allison Perier]

so I've talked

[Alison]

about therapy notes on here for years. I could talk about the features and the benefits in my sleep, but there are a couple things I want you

[Allison Perier]

to know about therapy notes that doesn't

[Alison]

typically make it into an ad script.

[Allison Perier]

First is that they actually care if

[Alison]

you like their platform. They don't only make themselves available on the phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your hair out when you get stuck. They also take member suggestions and implement those that there's client demand for. Like Therapy Search, an included listing service that helps clients find you internal and external secure messaging Clinical outcome measures to keep an eye on how your clients are progressing A super smooth super bill process Real time eligibility to check on your client's insurance. In my conversations with the employees there at all levels, they all really believe in their product and they want you to love it too. Second, they are proudly independently owned. Why should you care about that?

[Allison Perier]

Because as soon as venture capital becomes

[Alison]

involved, the focus shifts from making customers happy to making investors happy. Prices go way up. Innovation plateaus. Making more money with as little output as possible becomes the number one focus. With over 100,000 therapists using their platform, they've been able to stay incredibly successful and they don't have to sacrifice your experience to stay there. You can try two months [e-mail] with the coupon code abundant the VC back platforms made promises and then they changed the pay, they changed the rules and they made it clear that those promises were never really about us. I built platform to private pay for therapists who were done being dependent on companies that have already shown them who they are, but who aren't ready to blow up their income to get out.

[Allison Perier]

You don't have to leap.

[Alison]

I'll show you how to bring in private pay clients while you stay on the platforms for stability and then replace graduating clients with private pay clients until the math works in your favorite. If you've been circling this decision, hit the link in the show notes. Doors to this cohort close July 3rd

[Allison Perier]

welcome back to the Abundant Practice Podcast. I'm your host Allison Perier, founder of Abundance Practice Building and today we have a little bit of a panel discussion. We have Karen, Kenzie and Amanda here and we're going to be talking about what it's like to work on the platforms, what it's like to leave the platforms, the concerns, the hard parts. We're just talking all things platforms today. So thanks you all for being here.

[Kenzie]

Thanks for having us.

[Allison Perier]

Thank you. Could we maybe start with Karen? Can you tell me some about what it's been like for you to be on a platform? What was it meant to be a stopgap? Were you planning to be on it forever? Are you impacted by the shenanigans, those kinds of things? Yeah.

[Karen]

So my plan was to just have it be kind of a buffer as I begin private practice because the end goal was to be full private pay, but to start on the platform so that when I'm ready to leave, I don't have to worry about depaneling myself with the insurances, which I ended up going against my own goal there. But I'm still on one platform, which overall has been a good experience, except for recently where they decrease. One of the insurances, however, the other ones, they were good for what they were what I wanted them for. One of them started to change a lot too. And I was just like, that's weird. And clients started to complain about it too and was just like, karen, I'll just pay you, just forget it, I don't care, I don't want to be on there.

[Allison Perier]

Can you tell us what went weird?

[Karen]

So they were inconsistent of the information they were giving my client because, you know, they do all the billing, I don't have access. The current one that I'm on, I have access to all of that I can see. But the other two that I used to be on, I didn't have any access to any of that.

[Alison]

That.

[Karen]

And so that the particular incident I'm thinking of, that client ended up having a deductible, but the platform wasn't communicating clear. And it just seemed like they were trying to get over on her or something. And then she was like, I would just rather just pay you. You get all of that money and I'm done with that. That place. I don't want to communicate with them anymore.

[Allison Perier]

Okay. I love it.

[Karen]

Yeah. So she ended up just being a out of pocket, you know, because you're

[Allison Perier]

building that private pay, right? Yeah, you know, it's possible.

[Karen]

Right. And then the other one that I was on, I had a good experience, but my clients Didn't. Because when it came to billing, they wasn't really answering the questions. And they would ask me, and I'm like, okay, let me go ask on your behalf. But they wouldn't. Oh, you just have to tell the client to call. Which I hated that because you don't have a relationship with my client. So.

[Allison Perier]

Right.

[Karen]

And so that was very frustrating. Um, so I think not being able to see all of that and explain things to my client was frustrating. And then, of course, they paid lower as well. So after I decided to step away, I did end up getting credential on my own, which gave myself a raise.

[Allison Perier]

Mm.

[Karen]

Really being credentialed with insurances on my own. So that was a plus. What I'm running into now is just other services I want to offer, insurances won't cover. And so where I'm at now is my current clients. And I did just send my email out last night. I think it was that I am just going to move them all to. Because I think the scary part about getting off of them is worrying about my clients. That's my big part. But I did send an email out to my clients, giving them a time frame that I will be moving them to that. My current platform. And I felt that as well, because some of these clients followed me from the old platforms. So I feel like they're probably gonna be like, Karen is just so inconsistent.

[Allison Perier]

What is she doing?

[Karen]

But I was just like, well, it's either that or they're gonna have to just pay me themselves because I'm about to depend on myself. So to help them out. Which I don't know if that's still doing that out of fear, but I did send them an email that I'm going to move you over to here. And that's where all the insurance plan is. Probably just turn my thing off after that. And then so once I'm done with those clients, I'm not taking anymore.

[Alison]

Yeah.

[Karen]

Because really, recently, here, like, my recent three clients that I've booked in June, two of them are paying out of pocket. And so I just see it as God telling me, just do it, Karen. Just do it.

[Alison]

You got this. Yeah.

[Allison Perier]

You're marketing. It's bringing people in. Like, it's working.

[Karen]

It's working. So despite me, like, oh, my gosh, they're gonna think that I'm just so like. But it's whatever. I was like, I'm just gonna do it. It's whatever.

[Allison Perier]

So, yeah, I mean, it's. It's not you being inconsistent. It's these platforms not working well. So you're taking care of them by bringing them to something that is more consistent, hopefully. But hopefully we're gonna make okay. Awesome. And I think before I hear about other folks, threes is if, if people are like, wait, wait, wait, what's a platform? We are going to use the word platform fairly broadly to talk about businesses such as Alma Rula, Headway, grow, row, better help, which is a different model, but in the same vein. These kinds of things. We are probably not going to express opinions specific to any platform. We will share facts about specific platforms, but we're not going to do opinions because they love to send he's into this letters and I don't want to get them, so. And I don't want these folks to get them either.

[Amanda]

I will.

[Allison Perier]

I can say facts. So I will be sharing some things because I've been doing some real follow the money kind of stuff, y', all. And I am. I feel like I understand these platforms on a level that I don't want to understand them. And I acknowledge having had hundreds of conversations now with folks in my DMs about the platforms that they have met a need for a lot of people. My whole goal with abundance was to make it easy for people to get into private practice. Right? They've done that.

[Alison]

They did.

[Allison Perier]

They did my job. They've made it easy to get into private practice. There are some shady things that I would never and don't have the power to do, like decreasing people's pay or, you know, some of the bait and switch stuff that they've done. Or there's an instance where somebody's entire transcript with their therapist was given over to the court system. Ended up losing a case for wrongful termination. Nine months pregnant because she was expressing things to her therapist. So, like, there are some things that these. They are tech companies. They're not mental health clinics. They're tech companies. They don't have to follow our ethics. But that therapist absolutely did not mean for any of that to be given to the court system or the judge. So all that to say, I would love to hear from you, Kenzie. Tell me some about your experience. What makes it hard to get off, but how has it been?

[Kenzie]

Yeah. So I initially joined a platform because I was leaving a group practice and I was amazed by how much they were offering to reimburse me to stay on insurance panels. It was like over three times what I was making.

[Amanda]

Wow.

[Kenzie]

I was like, yeah, okay, I'm just gonna go for it. And I always had A little idea of, like, I think eventually I'd like to be private pay, but. But this is so great as it is. I think I could just keep doing this. And then, similar to what Karen was sharing, like, there were some issues with not being totally straightforward or clear about the payment that my clients had to make. Like, it was wrong a lot of times, which was extremely frustrating because I. Like, I can't control that. I have no idea about any of that. So I felt like that made me look bad because I'm like, I'm so sorry you're getting charged more than you thought you were getting charged. And then another big change I noticed was at first I was getting sent all of these referrals. Like, so many clients were reaching out. And I was like, why isn't everybody doing this? Like, it felt too good to be true. And then it feels like it was too good to be true because then those stopped or the referrals I were getting were so inappropriate, not even remotely close to my specialty or anything that I practice, which also sucks because I hate having to be like, I'm so sorry. Like, I have openings, but I am not the therapist for you, and I have to help you now find somebody else. Like, it's more work. So the biggest thing now is now I'm coming off of insurance panels, or wanting to come off insurance panels. And now I have this huge caseload of clients that I never would have had if I was initially private pay, because they would have never done private pay, which in some ways is great, because I wouldn't have gotten the chance to work with them and, you know, and whatever. But now I'm dealing with the guilt and, like, the emotionalness of having to be like, I'm sorry, I can't take your insurance anymore, and now you have to pay private pay. And I don't know what the state of therapy is going to be looking like, you know, so, also to be clear, I specialize in OCD and autism therapy. And I think it's really hard for people to find OCD therapists who are specialized and trained. And I think it's even harder to find therapists who have that ocd and autism piece. And so I think I'm also dealing with some of the guilt of it's going to be really hard for some of my clients to find a therapist in this same niche that takes insurance. So that's making it harder to, like, come off. And I had toyed with the idea of, like, well, maybe I'll just stick with one insurance company because I the their reimbursement rate is like pretty good and then we got some notice that the rates are going down and so it just is scary. It's scarier to stay on insurance because it feels like I'm going to keep getting a pay cut and a pay cut and a pay cut year after year. Um, so as much as it's emotional to have to leave my clients with somebody else, ultimately it's like what I have to do for myself and my future.

[Allison Perier]

Mm. Yeah. And it feels unfair that you have to like choose between that there has to be some sort of like it's in conflict at all.

[Kenzie]

Right.

[Allison Perier]

Your well being and your clients. Yeah. What about you, Amanda?

[Amanda]

Oh, yeah. So I'm relating so much to what both Karen and Kenzie have just said. I am still on one of the platforms actually. It's the only one I've ever done of all the available ones. And I only got on it as a means to an end. I never intended to be on it forever because I always wanted to transition eventually to just private pay because I've dealt with the insurance game for so long and I'm, I'm just over it. But I of course am feeling the same things, the same fear about what's going to happen when I tell my clients that I'm going to be getting off of this. Because like Kenzie, I got a lot of referrals in the beginning and then they just dry up after a few months. They start to kind of taper off and then you'll get maybe, or I have gotten maybe 1, 2amonth and they're not good matches or I have to reach out to them instead of them booking, not intake, but consultation directly. And then I never, they never connect. So same issues also with not knowing exactly how much are my clients having to pay because they'll send you a little estimate when they verify eligibility and it'll have a little asterisk and. But you never really know. And then when there's a problem, they don't want to resolve it, they pitch it back to you and the client to figure it out to get. Call the insurance companies and get them on the same page if you know somebody's interest change from one to another. So it seems great at first and it is great at first and you do get a little bit more money, but then it just becomes another insurance type situation. And now they are who they are owning the data. You know, like who owns this data? Are they training their AI models on information? I don't Submit. I just use them for billing and the directory purposes. I never used their EHR feature. But in order to use them for billing, you have to send some kind of assessment to a client, some kind of questionnaire, and you get to pick between a few. So they are getting some data, some ehi. So it just feels like the walls are closing in. It almost feels like they're trying to run us out of town and just AI take over. And I'm a fan of AI in some instances, like it's a love hate thing, but it just feels like all these companies are conglomerating and getting into bed with the insurance companies who. If the investor is also the person who's reimbursing you, that's a little shady. Yeah, seems like conflict of interest.

[Allison Perier]

Yeah. And there's some. There's some interesting shadiness too, because I think, hold on, I don't want to say the wrong number insurance companies because like through the aca. Let me pull this up. I had it pulled up through the ACA. Insurance companies have to spend, I believe it's 85%, 80 to 85 cents of every premium dollar. So, like for every dollar I pay, they're supposed to spend 80 to 85 cents of what's paid to them on healthcare. And so part of what they're doing is buying platforms or investing in platforms. They're spending it on healthcare rather than paying for my breast mri. And then they come back around and they're making money on every session. So I had one student share with me the allowed amount. She said, this is not what it is elsewhere. Like if you, if she got paneled herself, it was nowhere near this amount. But through this platform, the allowed amount was $235. So the client hadn't met their deductible, so they were paying the company $235. The therapist was getting $110 per session. So when the insurance company is getting more than half of every session, it's making them a lot of money. It's making their shareholders a lot of money. It's allowing their CEOs bigger bonuses. It is not doing what healthcare is supposed to do or health insurance is supposed to do, which is actually provide health care. So what y' all are saying is really consistent with what I was talking to folks with in the DMs of I don't want to leave my clients. I care about them and it's really hard and I feel bad. And there's also that I need financial stability. I can't just hop off. Because I think the majority of people I spoke to, which makes me think the majority of people in the platforms, they don't know how to market. They don't know how to set up their own infrastructure for their practice because it was kind of required that it be their infrastructure on these platforms. And so there's this huge learning curve that feels insurmountable in the face of, like, okay, well, now I've got a pay cut and I don't know what to do on my own. So it just feels like too much at once for a lot of people while trying to provide great clinical care amongst all of it, and maybe needing to see more clients because their pages got cut, you know, 30% overall.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Yeah. I think, you know, I feel for the folks who have only gotten into private practice this way because, you know, as much as I may be complaining about how it's a headache for me and it's. It's scary and frustrating, I do have some experience with. With marketing and with having my own, you know, outside infrastructure for all of that. So I can only imagine how intimidating that is and that sense of urgency that they may be feeling, that it's just. It's suffocating.

[Allison Perier]

Yeah. And all three of you are in one of my programs, right? I think it's. And I haven't had conversations with the salespeople for these platforms. I hear they can be very persuasive. But another pattern that I picked up that I'd love to know from you guys is, did they make it sound like getting credentialed on your own was very difficult and very expensive?

[Karen]

I didn't experience that. But one. I experienced that I ended up not finishing the onboarding, but they made it sound so nice and sweet and things like that. But then I felt like they were bullying me the entire onboarding. Hurry up. You said you were going to get these clients on here, aren't you? You said you had other clients and you can go, when are you going to bring them over? And I'm thinking, what are you talking about? Why would I promise to bring you clients? But I read your contract that you don't want me to take clients from you, but you want me to take clients from somewhere else and bring them to you? No, I'm not doing that. And I had to really get kind of a little gangster in my emails. They were tripping, and I was like, y' all just go ahead and just scratch me off. This is. This is not. We're not doing this. I will not be bullied, you know, so I've never had the experience of them making getting personally credentialed hard. But I've been bullied to bring clients to their platform, which I thought was weird because usually they persuade you that you'll get clients because of their marketing. But this particular platform was like, hurry up. And because I gave you Psychology Today for free, you need to hurry up and give me. Bring clients over here.

[Allison Perier]

It was.

[Karen]

It was weird. And I was like, absolutely not.

[Allison Perier]

Yeah, absolutely not.

[Amanda]

I haven't experienced that with the platform that I have been using, although they did get me credentialed very quickly. But I haven't experienced really any pressure to bring other people in. But I did a few years ago interview with another platform that it was basically like I was going to be a W2 employee, but I wasn't going to be a W2 employee. They had all these restrictions. You had to follow their protocol. You had to see so many clients, you had to see so many crisis, or you got paid more if you saw more crisis people. And it just was like, why would I jump from the frying pan to the fire? I was working for a hospital system at the time, and it just was like, that's the same thing, different name, different format, you know, and you're going to. And I'm going to be treated as a contractor when I'm really a W2.

[Allison Perier]

Right, right.

[Kenzie]

I had a pretty good and easy process with one of the platforms. I was actually impressed by how quickly it was. And there was another platform that had been reaching out to me kind of a lot. And there was one insurance that I had clients from my previous group practice that wanted to follow me that I couldn't accept on this other platform. So I did the interview with. With this other one, and they told me that they have contracts with this insurance company, but it could take a little bit longer than what the other platform took. So I was like, okay, sure. So I let my clients know roughly and rough estimate. And then I think it took a year and a half, maybe almost two years to actually get credentialed because they did not have a contract with them in a certain state. And then for some reason, I'm licensed in another state, but I couldn't be credentialed with that until I was credentialed with the other one. It was like this whole mess. So I had these clients waiting to meet, and so I ended up meeting with them for, like, really cheap because I felt bad. So it took almost two years to actually get credentialed with, with an insurance. Yeah.

[Allison Perier]

Wow. Okay. What else might I not know? As somebody who's not been a part of a platform, what's something you wish you knew before you joined?

[Kenzie]

I wish I knew that some of my clients were going to be paying more money than even what my private pay rate is and definitely more money than what I'm getting paid. Because if I had known that, I don't know that I would have jumped into taking insurance because the whole reason I would take insurance is to make it easier for clients. And there are some benefits to the platforms that I'm going to miss. Like being able to post in a state group and being like, does anyone have any like referrals for this or any openings for this? And I've met a lot of therapists through these networks, but we can do that outside of the platforms. Like we don't need the platforms for those.

[Karen]

Mm. Mm.

[Amanda]

I wish I would have known that the referrals and the directory listing was going to be basically meaningless after just a few months. Is that, you know, this particular platform, there's a fee to use it. And I mean, I can do billing. I, I could just do that easily if I was individually credentialed. But what am I paying for this for, you know, dollars more and, and to be, you know, kind of baited and switched by the VCs and the insurance companies? I don't think so.

[Karen]

Yeah.

[Allison Perier]

Yeah.

[Karen]

One particular platform I'm no longer on, but what I wish I would have known that their flat rate was not a flat rate for all sessions, like a 45 minute session versus a 60 minute session. So in the onboarding process, they just talked about that flat rate, which wasn't much. And, but the first time that I did a 45 minute session, I was like, why am I getting paid less? I thought this was a flat rate because it's. I feel like they contradicted themselves because then when a person pays out of pocket and they're not using insurance, you still don't get that. You get the flat rate. The flat rate. And so in my mind I figured, okay, well if I'm paying insurance in a session, time changes. If you can decrease it, then if someone's paying out of pocket and they're not using insurance, I need to get that money because if you can decrease my pay.

[Alison]

Right.

[Karen]

Whatever flat rate that you're talking about, then you can also increase it. And so I thought that was like, nah, that's not. That doesn't make sense. Yeah, you know, because if a person's coming found me through this platform and they're paying out of pocket, I might as well just see them on my own because I'm not going to get that money. You know, that didn't make sense to me. So I guess I wish I would have known to ask more specific questions and things like that before joining that platform.

[Allison Perier]

Yeah. Amazing. For, like, thanks to y' all for talking to me about this. I feel like I've been pretty hyper fixated on the platforms the last few weeks as they continue to make it difficult for therapists. And yeah, I'm excited that y' all are all on your way to being off of them and you've all got private pay clients and you're all, you're mid stride and there are a lot of therapists out there who haven't even started walking. And so I'm really hoping that they hear you and they have some hope and that if they need some help, we've got a program specifically for slowly getting off the platforms so that you don't have to leave your client, but you're building up your private pay as you go. So available. And yeah, I want to, I want to hear all about it. When you guys close out your last yes. Platform, let me know.

[Amanda]

Thank you so much for doing this.

[Allison Perier]

Yeah, thank Allison. I'll talk with you soon.

[Karen]

Bye. Bye.

[Alison]

If you're ready for a much easier practice, Therapy Notes is the way to go. Go to therapynotes.com and use the promo code abundant for two months. If you're listening, you probably need some

[Allison Perier]

support building your practice.

[Alison]

If you're a super newbie, grab our free checklist using the link in the show notes. I'd love for you to follow rate and review, but I really want you to share this episode with a therapist friend. Let's help all our colleagues build what they want.