Depression Counseling

Yes! You can request to work with a counselor you were referred to by a friend or with who you felt a connection from their profile. Learn more about our counselors.

Providing the very best counseling services requires a thorough quality assurance process.
For us, that begins with only inviting the top 2% of applicants, all of whom have at least a Master’s Degree or Doctorate in mental health, to our extensive interviewing process. Our process includes meetings with our clinical supervisors and a mock session where applicants demonstrate their clinical skills.

Once hired as an employee, counselors begin a two-year post-graduate residence with us where they are trained in Neuroscience Informed Christian Counseling. This process includes online university coursework, supervision groups where they share videos of their therapy and receive feedback, engaging their own personal development therapy, and individual supervision where they receive expert coaching in their clinical skills. All counselors complete residency rotations in individual counseling, couples’ communication, sex therapy, sex addiction, infidelity recovery, group therapy, teen and family therapy.

After certification, our counselors continue to receive over 400 hours a year of continuing education and regular coaching on their sessions to continue their development. This is an important way we ensure high accountability for the quality of our therapy.

At MyCounselor.Online providing you with a 5 Star Experience starts with staffing our clinical team with the very best counselors. Next, we invite feedback after every meeting, and at regular intervals, we complete progress surveys with you. If your experience is ever less than 5-Star our Quality Assurance team investigates what happened to see how we can improve.

1. Do you recognize a need for something to change in your life or relationship for you to fully THRIVE?
2. Are you committed to doing what is necessary to THRIVE?
3. Is your Christian faith important to you?
4. Is $220 a month too much to invest in your mental health and personal development?

MyCounselor.Online may be right for you if you’re looking to improve the quality of your life.

Whenever there is anything that interferes with your joy or prevents you from achieving your goals, we may be able to help. We also have counselors who specialize in specific issues such as stress, anxiety, relationships, parenting, depression, addictions, eating, sleeping, trauma, anger, family conflicts, sexual and gender identity, grief, spirituality, self-esteem, and more.

MyCounselor.Online is not the right solution for you if any of the following is true:
• You are in an urgent crisis or an emergency situation
• You were required to undergo therapy by a court order or by any other authority
• You do not have a device that can connect to the internet or you do not have a reliable internet connection

When you schedule your first session the matching specialist will collect your payment information. On the day of your appointments, the payment method you provided will be automatically charged for that day’s appointment.

The matching process can take a few hours or a few days, depending on your availability. You will choose a time to meet with a matching specialist and you will choose when you wish to meet with your counselor. Your first meeting with your counselor could be as soon as the same day you meet with your matching specialist depending on the availability of the counselor you choose.

You will meet with your counselor via secure, HIPAA-compliant Zoom video conferencing. If you need to reschedule an appointment you can do so using the scheduling link in your appointment confirmation email or by contacting the receptionist team by phone or email.

The professionals who work through MyCounselor.Online are trained and credentialed counselors just like traditional in-person counselors. The only difference is you meet with them from the convenience of your couch.

This depends on your needs and varies a lot from one person to another. Some people feel they get most of the value after just a month or two while they are going through a life crisis, while others prefer to make it part of their ongoing personal development plan. This is completely up to you.

In video sessions with your counselor, you see each other and talk with each other in a virtual face-to-face setting (similar to Facetime or video call in a Message app).

When you schedule your appointment, you will receive a confirmation email with a link to join your session. At the time of your appointment, you will click the link. You will be redirected to a “digital waiting room” where you wait until your counselor lets you into the digital meeting room. Then you start video chatting with your therapist.

MyCounselor.Online is a Christian counseling provider focused on delivering the highest quality care possible. As such we are unwilling to enter into any arrangement that might pressure us to compromise quality to increase insurance company profits. Thus, at present, we are not a part of any private insurance in-network panels.

That being said, outpatient psychotherapy is a covered benefit under many insurance plans and many of our clients do receive out-of-network benefits for our services. Some networks, recognizing our excellence in certain specialized areas, have agreed to reimburse our clients at in-network levels even though we are not on their in-network panels. This is solely at the discretion of your insurance provider. Services offered through us are generally not covered by Medicare or Medicaid.

While we cannot accept consignment for insurance benefits, we can submit claims for reimbursement of our services to your insurance company on your behalf. There is a $5 fee for each claim submitted for you. It’s also important to understand we have no control over how much your policy will cover, if any, or how covered claims may be applied based on your deductible.

You may also be able to use an HSA/FSA account benefit for MyCounselor.Online services.

Coverage and benefits for traditional in-person therapy and therapy services change from one health insurance company to another and from plan to plan, but generally, the following rules apply:
• Faith-based counseling is often not covered.
• Often insurance will only pay for brief therapy models aimed at short-term symptom relief to prevent hospitalization and not long-term, permanent resolution.
• With many health insurance plans, coverage can be partial or very limited.
• Even if your plan covers all your costs, the co-pay that you would be required to contribute may be higher than the entire cost of MyCounselor.Online.
• In many cases, before you can get reimbursed by your insurance company, your therapist would have to diagnose you with a mental disorder or issue. This diagnosis would be sent to the insurance company and recorded in your medical file. In some cases, the therapist would also have to provide additional clinical information to the insurance company, such as treatment plans, summaries, or copies of the entire record.

Please note that MyCounselor.Online offers pricing options that are typically comparable with the co-pays of most insurance plans.

Yes — in many cases you can use Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) or Health Savings Accounts (HSA) for counseling. We recommend that you double-check with your HSA/FSA provider to see what information they need to accept MyCounselor.Online counseling; it might be as simple as an itemized receipt or a “super bill,” — which you will receive by email automatically for each meeting with your counselor.

To use your FSA/HSA with us, all you need to do is provide your card details when you meet with your matching specialist, just as you would for a normal credit card. Using HSA or FSA dollars for MyCounselor.Online online counseling is a great way to save money — with these accounts, you’re using pre-taxed income you’ve set aside for health care costs.

Cancellations must be made by 5 pm CT the business day prior to your scheduled appointment by contacting reception (Monday appointments must be canceled by 5 pm CT the Friday before). You will be responsible for paying the full session fee if changes are made after that time.
Much like a doctor’s appointment or hotel reservation, this time was reserved by the counselor specifically for you. When changes are made beyond the cancellation window, you are still responsible for that reserved time since we can no longer offer it to other clients in need.
Clients who experience an internet outage or other technical difficulties are encouraged to attend their session over the phone.
We apply the cancellation policy without favoritism and with uniformity to all clients to whom it applies.

While other companies are focused on providing discounted services, MyCounselor.Online is focused on providing the very best counseling available. To ensure a premium experience for our clients we:
• Employ all our counselors (we don’t use independent contractors)
• Hire 2% of applicants
• Pay in the top 90 percentile of mental health salaries and benefits
• Invest over $30,000 into professional development for each new counselor we hire during a two-year post-graduate residency
• Provide over 400 hours a year of paid continuing education for our counselors

Because of the additional cost involved in providing the very best services we are not able to offer services for free or on a sliding scale.

We do have counselors at three different levels of experience, each at a different price point, and a variety of payment options. We are also able to provide some scholarships through our relationship with Partners For Strong Families. Learn more about the Strong Families Scholarship here. 

We also partner with many churches and faith-based organizations that provide scholarships for their people. Learn more about our scholarship partners.

MyCounselor.Online services are provided by our employees, recruited, trained, and held accountable to high standards of excellence by our clinical supervisors. This is different from other providers, such as BetterHelp or Talkspace, where providers are independent contractors and they do not train or oversee them professionally.

We take your privacy and confidentiality seriously. We utilize state-of-the-art technology, operations, and infrastructure with the goal of protecting your privacy and safeguarding the information you provide. It is important to us that you know exactly how your privacy and confidentiality are treated, for more information see our Informed Consent Documents.

Here are some helpful things for you to know:

• Everything you tell your therapist is confidential, with a few important exceptions (like child abuse disclosures) explained in our Informed Consent Documents.
• We do not work with any insurance companies, so nothing needs to be shared, reported, or filed with them unless you request we submit a reimbursement claim on your behalf.
• All video sessions between you and your counselor are secured and encrypted by banking-grade 256-bit encryption through a HIPAA compliant version of Zoom

If you wish for any of your information or records to be released to a third party, please let your counselor know. Your counselor will send you an authorization form that you will need to fill out and sign before your information can be released.

The exact frequency you meet with your counselor is unique to you and your situation. Your counselors will make a recommendation after getting to know you. On average clients meet with their counselors 2-3x a month for 45-minute meetings. Some people prefer to meet less frequently or for longer 90-minute meetings. You will choose meeting frequency and duration based on your counselor’s recommendation and your preferences.

Counselor and therapist are synonymous terms used interchangeably.

Protecting your privacy and confidentiality is extremely important to us, however, we are not able to provide anonymous services. We do need to collect contact information, including the location you will access services from, in case of an emergency. This is kept safe in our system so it can be used if your counselor believes that you or someone else might be in danger. This information is kept strictly confidential and protected by our secure system.

We are always hiring Christian counselors with a passion to provide 5 Star Experiences. Learn more about MyCounselor.Online Careers here. We are always hiring Christian counselors with a passion to provide 5 Star Experiences. Learn more about MyCounselor.Online Careers here.