Best Online Therapy That Takes Insurance: Top 9 Services Reviewed 2022 [The Sacramento Bee]

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Let’s admit it, online therapy is pricey, especially when you want to see the best counselors. And, for most people, therapy sessions are financially unsustainable when paid for out-of-pocket.

However — we believe you deserve affordable virtual therapy.

And for you, we set out to find you the best online therapy that takes insurance services, and help you build better health more affordably with the help of accredited therapists.

Overall, we feel that Talkspace tops this list due to its excellent team of qualified therapists and extensive insurance providers.

That being said, we’ll let you make the final call.

Weighing the top virtual therapy covered by health insurance, here are reputable, reliable, and diverse online therapy services to make your therapy visits cheaper.

Best Online Therapy Covered by Insurance:

This is a list of recommendations and in no way a guide to self-diagnose. To seek a licensed professional for mental health issues, please contact your doctor.

1. Talkspace - Best Online Therapy with Insurance Overall

Pros

Cons

Talkspace checks all the earmarks of a top-notch online therapy service: experience, friendly licensed providers, high ratings, and more.

To begin with, the company has 10 years of experience in the virtual therapy industry, and they’ve been featured by renowned broadcasters like CNN, TODAY, and Business Insider.

Besides, Talkspace gives you a hint into customer satisfaction with its over 60,000 5-star customer ratings, and that can give you some confidence in how good it is.

Talkspace Features:

Communication Options:Chat | Video chat | Phone

Off the bat, the online therapy platform partners with a ton of insurance providers, e.g. Cigna, Optum, Gator Care, and more, thus you’ll most probably be able to make an insurance payment.

When starting, you’ll list your therapist preferences and needs, and Talkspace will give you licensed therapist recommendations to choose from.

Better yet, the company offers you $100 off your first therapy session as a welcome package, and at any point, if you want to switch counselors you can do so at no cost. Great, eh?

Moreover, Talkspace is pretty extensive.

The company offers services to individuals, couples, and teens, and even offers psychiatry services for medication management services if you need a prescription.

Only, the company doesn’t have group therapy, but the couples therapy could be a good way for you and your romantic partner to boost your romantic well-being.

Additionally, the online therapy platform caters to issues like mental health, parenting, relationships, LGBTQIA+, teenagehood, and chronic illness, to name a few, so you’ll for sure find a fitting therapist for yourself.

Lastly, all plans come with unlimited message therapy, hence you can reach out to your counselor ANYTIME you need help. Besides, there are mobile apps, which allow you to get those on-the-go therapy services.

>> $100 Off Your First Session With Talkspace

2. BetterHelp - Biggest Virtual Therapy Covered by Insurance

Pros

Cons

BetterHelp is the world’s largest therapy company.

How large?

The service has more than 25,000 accredited therapists, even more, the company boasts more than 208 million therapy sessions, so you can be assured that they’re very seasoned too

BetterHelp Features:

Communication Options: Messaging | Chat | Phone | Video chat

It’s not just the massive number of therapists here.

BetterHelp’s counselors are vetted, highly educated, and are all said to have graduate and postgraduate degrees, hence you can get into that session knowing you’re in capable hands.

In addition, the online therapy platform offers its services to individuals, couples, and even your teen child. Better yet, they sure cover a lot of areas, e.g. depression, anxiety, grief, trauma, relationships, and more to improve your mental health.

The company aims to make therapy more accessible, affordable, and convenient; and on accessibility and affordability, you’ll love that it accepts a wide line of medical insurance coverage to ease off therapy costs.

First, BetterHelp will ask you a series of questions to match you to a personalized therapist. You won’t be able to select your therapist, however, if you feel the need to move to a different therapist, you comfortably can.

Once you are matched to a personable online therapy provider, you can message them anytime, and even schedule live sessions for a more personal and real-time touch.

The best part is that you can talk to your therapist via message, chat, phone, or even video if you want a more intimate online therapy session. And, with all these options, you have the choice of staying anonymous for additional privacy.

>> Over 25,000 Therapists On BetterHelp

3. Online-therapy.com - Top Online Counseling With Insurance For Complementary Therapy Tools

Pros

Cons

Launched in 2009, Online-therapy.com has been devoted to helping people lead happier lives.

To make sure that you get the help you need, the service only picks extensively educated and certified counselors with wide hands-on experience.

Online-therapy.com Features:

Communication Options: Video chat | Voice call | Text

Online-therapy.com builds its therapy forte on a scientific treatment model based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).

How does it use CBT?

In simple terms, the service will seek to assist you and focus on rehabilitating your dysfunctional thoughts, emotions, and behaviors. Moreover, the CBT treatment has been known to help many people, and you might be one of them.

The therapy company also gives very interactive sessions, especially with its therapy online toolbox that includes worksheets, journals, and activity plans to help you manage your sessions and track progress.

In addition, the toolbox even includes yoga, an exercise that might help you calm your thoughts.

Well, Online-therapy.com doesn’t have a mobile app, but we found that the website is well-optimized, so you can use it seamlessly on almost any device.

Generally, the company helps you with mental health care in areas like depression, anxiety, health anxiety, anger, and more, and you could also tag along with a partner for a couple of counseling sessions.

For your first month, Online-therapy.com gives you a 20% discount, and you get unlimited messaging therapy, and 45 minutes of live sessions every week.

>> 20% Discount With Online-therapy.com

4. Doctor on Demand - 24/7 Therapy That Takes Insurance Coverage

Pros

Cons

How good is it to know that Doctor on Demand’s therapists and psychiatrists tout an average experience of 15 years?

Even more, Doctor on Demand mostly focuses on mental health care issues, e.g. depression, PTSD, stress, and more, with a particular focus on helping you manage your anxiety.

Doctor on Demand Features:

Communication Options: Video

Unlike many online mental health services, Doctor on Demand believes that your health can’t wait, so it gives you 24/7 access to licensed therapists and psychiatrists.

Needless to say, with round-the-clock service, you can seek help at any time.

Of everything, the company’s all-around service seems to be its best aspect.

On top of its pleasant therapists, Doctor on Demand also offers psychiatrist services for medication management services.

Along with this, the online therapy service also provides preventive health therapy sessions that might help you stave off some emotional and mental health conditions.

One little thing is that the service only allows for video therapy visits.

While some people might wish for extra privacy, we find exclusive video therapy sessions a good way to foster a more engaging relationship between clients and their therapists. Yes?

Lastly, Doctor on Demand has an impressive iOS and Android app, and they can afford you an easier time following up on your therapy and possible medication management.

>> $100 Off Your First Session With Talkspace

Online Therapy Services That Don’t Take Insurance — But Are Still Worth It

5. Faithful Counseling - Leading Christian-based Online Counseling Services

Pros

Cons

Faithful Counseling strives to nourish your psychological and spiritual wholeness.

With devoted Christian therapists, the faith-centered counseling company weaves psychology and spirituality to nourish both your emotional, spiritual and mental health.

Faithful Counseling Features:

Communication Features: Phone | Video | Messages

Faithful Counseling might be heavy on Christianity, but it’s thoughtful they don’t force it upon you.

You have the freedom to choose the degree to which you want your therapist to use Christianity in your virtual therapy visits.

Additionally, the service is also open to anyone. Yes - even non-Christians.

To add, all the therapists here are licensed, trained, experienced, and accredited.

Matter of fact, all counselors have an advanced degree in their field, and each has at least 1000 hours of hands-on experience in the bag, so can be assured you’re under experienced practitioners.

The only thing is the counselor matching here is wholly automated and you don’t get to choose your therapist. However, you can freely and smoothly switch to a more harmonious therapist if need be.

In summary, Faithful Counseling covers a wide berth of issues, e.g. parenting, depression, addiction, intimacy, self-esteem, social behavior, LGBTQ, and many more, thus it’s pretty comprehensive.

6. Pride Counseling - Great LGBTQ+ Focused Virtual Therapy

Pros

Cons

Navigating the world as an LGBTQ+ person can be challenging, and Pride Counseling sets out to give you the tenderness you deserve when things get a little hard.

Pride Counseling Features:

Communication Options: Video | Phone | Messaging

Off the bat, Pride Counseling gives you widely honed compassionate therapists.

All their therapists have at least 3 years of experience and at least one thousand hours of actual practice, and that’s a good leg-up in getting your issues professionally catered to.

However, not all their therapists fall under the LGBTQ+ spectrum, even so, all of them are educated and greatly invested in mental health issues facing queer people, e.g. identity anxiety, self-esteem, and depression.

Also, the site is big on discretion and privacy; you can use aliases during your sessions and the company assures you that any personal details you give are secured to give you peace of mind.

To sum up, you get unlimited messaging with all subscriptions, and you can also schedule a live session with your counselor when it’s convenient for you.

7. Regain.us - Top Virtual Counseling for Relationships

Pros

Cons

Normal relationships experience ups and downs and Regain.us wants to give you a good shot at rekindling and improving the bond between you and your romantic partner.

Regain.us Features:

Communication Options: Video | Messaging | Phone

First off, Regain.us stands as one of the biggest therapist networks, and with over 12,000 licensed therapists dealing with diverse relationship issues, so you have a good likelihood of finding a well-suited counselor.

You’ll take an assessment to match you to a suitable therapist regarding your preferences and needs, and then after, you can opt to invite your partner for the session.

We must mention that counselor matching here might take a short while though, but from the user reviews the matching system appears to be quite accurate.

You can visit Regain.us for a ton of relationship challenges, like dating, divorce, parenting, intimacy, marriage, family, and almost anything you can think of.

In sum, the site has some educative and well-researched relationship-based articles, and they are additionally reviewed by licensed therapists to see that you get top-notch advice.

8. Teen Counseling - Exclusive Teen Online Therapy Services

Pros

Cons

The teenage years are a rocking boat, and Teen Counseling wants to be that help to help you steady the boat and help teenagers be better versions of themselves.

Teen Counseling Features:

Communication Options:Video | Chat | Messages

To begin, Teen Counseling has an abundance of teen therapy counselors. With 13,000+ professional, licensed, and accredited practitioners, you’ll be under able guidance.

A teen (13-19 years) can register directly on the site, or as a concerned parent, you can take an assessment about your child, get advice on how to help them, or invite them for a more proactive therapy visit.

Along with this, Teen Counseling seeks to address a massive selection of issues around adolescence like depression, bullying, eating disorders, and anger, self-esteem, hence you’ll most probably receive the assistance you deserve.

Also, we find the site’s live sessions are very immersive. We however wish the live sessions would last longer than 30 minutes. Still, you can always text your therapist and schedule another live visit.

The website also features an excellent customer service team, who’ll not only responsively answer your questions, but they’ll also reach out to you to see that you’re getting the most out of therapy.

9. Calmerry - Great New Online Therapy Services

Pros

Cons

Calmerry makes its face by helping people build a better state of mind and live a more fulfilling life.

Calmerry Features:

Communication Options:Messages | Video

What does the site specialize in?

Calmerry tackles a variety of mental health issues, from depression, anger management, PTSD, OCD, anxiety and stress, and emotional abuse, just to touch on a few.

Moreover, you’ll be receiving assistance from therapists with valid licenses from their states, so that should give you confidence.

Furthermore, the site touts an advanced customer-counselor matching system, and it’s estimated that 98% of clients are happy with the therapists they get connected with. Besides, you can always switch therapists stress-free and cost-free.

Still, Calmerry is only available for individuals, but they’re relatively new in the industry, so they might introduce couple’s therapy along the way.

To get you started, the online therapy company gives you $90 off on your first month, and they usually have regular coupons that can make your therapy visits cheaper.

How We Chose Our Best Online Therapy Services

What Is the Therapist Network Size?

To allow users to find a therapist that works for them, we made sure to shortlist online therapy platforms that had the largest number of licensed and experienced mental health professionals.

All our therapy sites have thousands of licensed mental health professionals, with all having more than 10,000 therapists that handle a diverse range of challenges that you might need help with.

How Diverse Are Their Specialties?

Therapy clients have varied needs, therefore, we naturally went for the most varied best therapy online therapy.

Considering this, we ensured that our sites catered to a wide array of mental, emotional, social, and other personal problems so that everyone has a fighting chance.

How Much Access Do I Get To My Therapist?

In addition, we wanted to see that people get the most time with their therapists.

With this, we solely picked online therapy platforms that first gave customers consistent access to their therapists, and all our services give you unlimited access to counselors on message.

Additionally, these online therapy companies also allow clients to have live interactive sessions with their licensed therapists, most giving you about 45-55 minutes a session.

What Are the Available Communication Options?

What’s more, because people are comfortable with different communication methods, we selected online therapy sites that included the most communication channels.

Regarding this, we were first intentional in selecting services that first offered great and quality live video communication to allow for an engaging client-counselor relationship.

Additionally, we also made sure that these best therapy online sites offered alternative communication methods for people that might desire extra privacy. So, the majority of sites here allow for video, message, and chat live therapy visits.

>> $100 Off Your First Session With Talkspace

Best Online Counseling That Takes Insurance - FAQs

Will My Insurance Cover Online Therapy?

Yes, your insurance can cover online therapy.

More and more health insurance providers are covering online therapy, and this was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic which demonstrated the need for more telehealth services to be covered under insurance.

However, what your health insurance company might cover in therapy lies with them, so you might want to reach out to them and see if they cover online therapy and the types of virtual therapy visits they cover.

Does Medicaid Pay for Online Therapy?

Yes, Medicaid now pays for online therapy.

In 2020, the US Congress through the Affordable Care Act tweaked the Medicaid requirements to allow more people to access telehealth services affordably, and online therapy was one of them.

To know what exactly Medicaid pays for, under online therapy, you should contact them.

Does BetterHelp or Talkspace Take Insurance?

Both BetterHelp and Talkspace take insurance.

BetterHelp and Talkspace are one of the most popular virtual therapy websites that take insurance from a long line of providers, with Talkspace appearing to accept more medical insurance providers.

What Is the Most Affordable Online Counseling?

Online-therapy.com is the most affordable online counseling service.

The virtual therapy has plans starting from about $160 a month, which is pretty good.

Even more, you get counselor communication through the weekdays, and you also receive a 20% discount on your first month, making it more affordable for new clients.

Is There Such a Thing as a Free Online Therapist?

Yes, there is such a thing as a free online therapist.

A good deal of mental health awareness organizations provide free online therapy sessions for individuals with mental health issues.

Also, a couple of virtual therapy sites can give you a free online therapy service where you can talk to a free online therapist for a limited time.

Is Talkspace Real Therapy?

Talkspace is real therapy and is one of the biggest names in the virtual therapy industry.

The online therapy company has been around since 2012, and it seeks to address a wide range of mental health, parenting, LGBTQ+, parenting, intimacy, and more issues.

Along with the experience, Talkspace boasts a plethora of positive customer reviews, suggesting how reliable it is.

Why Is Online Therapy Beneficial?

Online therapy is beneficial mainly because it gives people more access to therapy treatment — both in proximity and affordability — more so to people in remote areas who can’t access in-person therapy.

Along with this, unlike in-person therapy, best therapy online can give people more privacy during their therapy visits, making them more comfortable and open to sharing and receiving help with their challenges.

Virtual Therapy That Takes Insurance — Conclusion

You deserve affordable psychological healthcare, and with our top online therapy platforms, you can get that with the assistance of accredited and seasoned therapists.

From our review, Talkspace just takes it as the best therapy online that accepts health insurance. The virtual therapy company is highly experienced and scores high customer ratings.

Nonetheless, BetterHelp and Online-therapy.com are other top online therapy providers, and they have so many diverse therapists ready to help you out.

DISCLAIMER: This article does not provide medical advice.

The information, including but not limited to text, graphics, images, and other material contained in this article, are for informational purposes only. No material within this article is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Always speak to your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment before undertaking a new health care regimen, and never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you read in this article.