Unlock Your Best Tele-mental Health Experience- 7 Tips for Successful Virtual Care in 2024

If you've decided that 2024 is the year that you're going to start paying more attention to your mental health, there are so many benefits that telemental health can offer.

Telemental health is the use of telecommunications or videoconferencing technology to provide mental health services. It is sometimes referred to as telepsychiatry or telepsychology.

In this episode. I delve into the world of telemental health, exploring its benefits and sharing practical tips to ensure your telehealth visits are successful and fulfilling.

From building trust with your provider to ensuring privacy and safety during your sessions, these tips will empower you to make the most of your telehealth experience.

Topics include:

• The history and evolution of telehealth, from transmitting heart rhythms over the telephone in the early 1900s to the surge in telehealth during the COVID-19 pandemic
• The statistics demonstrating that women are more likely to seek mental health care 
• How telehealth can address the mental health crisis and provide access to specialized professionals, even in underserved areas
• My seven essential tips to ensure your telemental health visits are safe, effective, and comfortable

In the next episode, we will delve into the fascinating world of artificial intelligence in mental health.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• 7 telehealth trends that physicians should know | American Medical Association
• American Psychological Association
• Milman Report: Access Report | Inseparable 

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Disclaimer
The information in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition or treatment.

The personal views expressed by guests on Women's Digital Health are their own. Their inclusion here does not constitute an endorsement from Dr. Brandi, Women's Digital Health, or associated organizations.

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Transcript

 Welcome back. Welcome back to episode 12. I hope that you are off to a positive start in 2024. I think this episode will definitely help make it even better, or at least give you that good jumpstart. Because in this episode, we will be discussing tele-mental health. There are so many positive things that tele mental health can offer you if you decided that 2024 is the year that you're really going to start paying more attention to your mental health. And so we're going to be sharing some tips with you, you know, if you're already ready to go and you want to make the most of the opportunities. that telehealth has to offer. We're going to share seven tips to make sure that your first telehealth visit is your best visit. And it helps you to just be more successful for subsequent visits. Even if you've already started, perhaps these tips might help you improve the quality of your next visit. So stay tuned. If mental health is on your mind for 2024, I think this episode is going to help you a lot with getting the best care that you deserve. Okay, so there's lots of exciting news that's coming out of the telehealth sector. When I talk about digital health, this is one of my favorite subjects. I'm really happy to see that the use of telehealth has significantly increased across all specialties, not just mental health. So according to the history of telemedicine, modern telemedicine as we know it began in the early 1900s maybe even the late 1800s in the Netherlands, where they were transmitting heart rhythms or EKGs over the telephone. And then they were transmitting that data across radio lines into other centers across Europe. By the late 1940s, chest X-rays and other radiographic images were being transmitted by telephone between cities in the United States. The whole goal of telehealth is to take advantage of the audio and visual technologies that allow mental health professionals, doctors, nurses, and other health care providers to be able to deliver care, treatment plans, diagnosis, and prevention without being in the same place. And it was a way to get access to specialists who could connect to patients in underserved areas. And there's been a gradual increase in its use over 50 years. But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and then there was the requirement for socially distancing to limit exposure, there was this huge surge in the use of telehealth during that time and it has sustained a steady increase in its use. In 2023, according to the American Medical Association, you know, specifically for women, 42% of women have reported using telehealth in the past 12 months. 31% of men have also used telehealth to receive some form of care. And in general, women are more likely to seek mental health care. So when you can combine the likelihood of them using telehealth and the likelihood that they are going to seek mental health specifically, this is very promising for mental health community to actually address specific needs of women who are adopting the telehealth technology. Now, the other promising news that's coming out of the telehealth space is that there are more targeted platforms that are specifically designed for women. And they are addressing women's health challenges in general, but more specifically, they are offering tele mental health services. And so one example of these targeted platforms would be the Maven Clinic, where they not only address things like prenatal care, period menopausal support, postpartum support, but they also offer tele mental health services to address things like ADHD, depression, PTSD, postpartum depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. So I'm really excited about this to see more platforms that are recognizing that women have unique needs in their mental health care. And I think this is showing that telehealth is very promising to increase the access for women who really, really need services in this space. Now, if you've used telehealth before, you know there are a lot of benefits to using telehealth. First of all, it's very convenient. You know, you can use telehealth from home if that's the best place for you to get your care. It's time saving. In other words, you don't have to get in your car and go to a clinic. There's a cash savings there because you're not paying for gas to go to a clinic and you're not paying for parking when you actually get to the clinic. And there's evidence that using telehealth for mental health is as effective as an in-person visit. And it can address the crisis that we were discussing in episode 11, where we talked about the American Psychological Association survey, that 90% of us believe that there is a mental health crisis in the United States. Mental health access is still an issue. According to a Millman report, it looked at mental health profession shortage, and it revealed that 52.7% of the US population lives in some county that is entirely designated as a mental health professional shortage area. And there is no county in the United States that has fully met the need of psychiatrists. In other words, there is no county that exists where you have as many psychiatrists as you actually need. You're totally full. No county has that. So telehealth can bridge this gap. You know, if you're having a hard time, you're trying to find a mental health professional in your area, as the statistics, you know, supports, like we're all having a tough time trying to find one. This is great news, because you can now access mental health professionals via telehealth. Using telehealth can probably increase the likelihood of you finding one that may specialize in something that you need specialization in. So with all this great news, how do you get started? Let's say like, OK, you're on board. You're like, I love the sound of this. I like saving money. I like saving time. It's convenient. I like this type of digital health. Let me get started. OK, so how do I start? Well, I'm glad you asked. Because in the next part, I'm going to offer you seven tips, and they're going to get you going. They're going to increase the likelihood of you having a successful visit. Even if you've already used telehealth and you're comfortable, you might find some of these tips very useful in improving your level of comfort when you attend your next session. So stay tuned. Okay, so these seven tips I'm going to offer you are broken into two buckets. The first bucket is trust, you know, so we'll be covering tips that include things like privacy protection and establishing a rapport. The second bucket will be safety, you know, making sure you're in the right place to do a telehealth visit. All right. So the first bucket, the first bucket is trust. The story is I was curbsided as I was preparing for this episode. And the question was, Dr. Brandy, you know, telehealth sounds great. It sounds like a good idea. But honestly, I don't feel comfortable talking to a stranger that I've never met in person and entrusting them with my entire personal life. Like, I'm not I'm not really sure about that. And I think it's an excellent question. So, you know, how do you trust this mental health professional? And I think this should be first approached by asking the question, well, where do you find them? So tip number one addresses this. And this is the first place that you can find a mental health professional is through your doctor. You can ask your primary care physician or any health provider that does your general care for a referral. And they usually have a list of providers that they already have a relationship with. So start there. But suppose you don't have a referral. Suppose you're just looking someone up online. So the next thing you can do when you're looking up someone online is to do the following, which is tip number two. You got to identify what type of mental health professional they are. And this is really helpful to help you understand what type of care they offer. So there are like five or six different types of mental health professionals. There are psychiatrists. They are licensed medical doctors and they can prescribe medications while specializing in mental health. There are psychologists and they hold doctoral degrees in psychology and they have a separate licensing system that's different from psychiatrists and I'll talk about that later. There are licensed professional counselors. They hold master's degrees in counseling and serve in individual and group therapy. There are also licensed clinical social workers, and they also hold master's degrees in social work, and they can address mental health through a social justice lens. And there are also marriage and family therapists, and they hold a master's degree in marriage and family therapy, and they focus on relationships and family dynamics. And so understanding the different types of health professionals can help you understand, you know, a little bit more what type of health care they can offer you in terms of mental health. But tip number three, The one thing you can do just online is to check their license. So each of these different health professionals have different systems that can check their license. So for instance, if you're looking for a a health professional and they're an MD or they're like a psychiatrist, you can check their license through the Federation of State Medical Boards, and I'll put that link in my show notes. You can check the license of a psychologist through the Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards, the ASPB. I believe that link also allows you to verify licensed social workers and counselors, as well as marriage and family therapists. And so once you know the type of mental health professional that, you know, you're seeking care from and you can verify their license, you can find out, you know, if their license is valid and whether there's disciplinary action. But more importantly, you can help determine If they specialize in some particular area that is unique, you know, maybe they have specialization in trauma or PTSD, or maybe they focus specifically on postpartum depression for a particular demographic. Maybe they focus on postpartum depression in women of color. Right. So all of these things sometimes can be listed in their license verification or you can find out, you know, their bio on a on a website. But if you're trying to really just establish, you know, who this person is without having met them, you know, start start with their license. So that's tip number three. All right, so great. So you verify their license. There's no issues. And, you know, you're looking up their bio and you feel like this person has the things that you relate to. They have the specialization that you're looking for. And, you know, you want to learn more about this person. And you might think that, hey, I really would like to establish some relationship or some rapport with this person. How do you do it? So tip number four will answer this question and that is you can always request an initial consultation first before you commit to any one particular therapist. You know if you're picking someone online based upon you know what you read and you know, license verification, et cetera, you can always just do an initial consultation and you can express to them that, hey, I'm just looking around. I haven't committed, but I'd like to ask some questions about your approach. And you can ask whatever you want about their training, their expertise, their experience. If there's something unique about your situation you want to bring up, you can ask them, you know, like, how would you approach someone who's dealing with this particular life experience that I've had? I know we've discussed cognitive behavior therapy as one form of therapy, but I just want to keep in mind that there are so many different types of therapy and you don't have to know any of these different types of therapies. You don't have to pick one. You know, your therapist would ultimately decide what the best approach is. But it's just helpful to know that, you know, there are so many different therapists that specialize in different approaches to mental health. And that might be a great question, you know, is, you know, what is your approach and what things do you do? And so trying an initial consultation before you commit might help establish a degree of comfort before you decide that you want to go with one professional versus another. All right, so we're going to move on to the second bucket, which is safety. And by safety, I mean making sure that you have privacy and that you are in a safe place to actually have your visit. So the next two, actually the next three tips will address both of these issues, privacy and your surroundings. So tip number five is when you are choosing a provider, make sure you ask them if they're going to use a video platform that is HIPAA compliant, that is Health Information Portability Accountability compliant. This is really important because many times, you know, when people did not have access to HIPAA compliant video portals, they were using things like FaceTime and Google Meet. And these are unsecure platforms. And you're exchanging private health information. So it's really important that for your safety and for your protection, that video access that you're using is HIPAA compliant. And so you can definitely ask your provider, even in that initial consultation, you know, what video access do you use and is it HIPAA compliant? The other part of this is when they're communicating with you about the visit, usually it's going to be via email, text message, maybe a phone call. And particularly if it's email, is their email encrypted? Are they using any method to make sure that the data that they're exchanging with you via email is private? The other thing you can add to this is when you do start your telehealth visit, use your VPN. If you have VPN, you can actually use that when using a telehealth visit to give you an extra layer of protection. So just making sure that you're keeping in mind your privacy and your security, you know, that'll kind of help you establish a level of safety and comfort when you do your telehealth visit. OK, tip number six is about your Wi-Fi. So pick a place where the Wi-Fi is reliable. And I'm going to be honest, this can be tricky for many of us, depending on where we live. One, I would say the measure is if you can do a FaceTime or Google Meet or some non-secure video platform with both the audio and video without it breaking up for at least 30 to 45 minutes. you're probably OK. But if your connection changes based upon whether or not you have video or not, you may need to reconsider if telehealth for your mental health is the best option. Or you may need to consult with your mental health professional to see if an audio only is ideal. And there's always the option of switching to in-person. It doesn't mean that you can't go back to telehealth later. But perhaps that initial visit might need to be in person. That might serve you better until you can get access to reliable Wi-Fi. So just keep that in mind. All right. The last tip, this is tip number seven. I would say check your surroundings before you start your telehealth visits. You want to think about this like you're actually in person with your provider. You could be disclosing very intimate and uncomfortable information to your provider, or your health professional might be asking you personal questions that you have to answer. So I would highly recommend that you not take your telehealth visit in your car, or if you have to take it in your car, just make sure that the audio is not in your car speakers. People can hear your audio in your car, outside of your car. And so you may want to consider using headphones or something to kind of secure the audio if you are going to use it, if you are going to take your telehealth visit in your car. Having said that, if you are choosing to take a telehealth visit in your car, I would strongly advise that you not drive, that this is something that could be you know, pretty emotional. And so you don't want to be in a situation where you're driving and you're distracted by that. And I get it. You know, everyone's surroundings is different. Not everyone is granted, you know, the privilege of having a private place to take these visits. And maybe the car is the place to be. I get it. I think the ideal situation is to just to try to contain that by, you know, protecting your audio and making sure that you're in a place where you can focus on just the visit without the distraction of other people in the car or driving to other places. The other component of technology I wanted to add with regards to The telehealth visit is if you are using Bluetooth, you know, make sure that your Bluetooth is not going to jump from one device to another so that your conversation is not audible to others. You know, it could be that if another person stops by, your your audible is now going to another solution. So just keep that in mind when you're trying to when you're choosing Bluetooth, that it's that it's contained. All right, bonus tip, and this is with regards to surroundings as well, is if you need to find a quiet space for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how long your session is, you know, try your local library. You can grab an individual study room, if that's the safest place, the place that you could feel the safest. Take your telehealth session from there until you can find a safer, more comfortable place to take your visit. I understand, again, how privileged it is to have a place that is private, that is dedicated to you for 30 minutes to an hour. Not all of us have that. But if you need a place and you're running out of ideas, try your local library. I am seeing more and more signs of libraries hosting, willing to host sessions like that. And so just consider that as an option for yourself. So that concludes episode 12. I hope that you can take some of these tips and put them into action. If you're using telehealth for your mental health or any other condition, send me an email. Let me know how it's going. I would love to hear feedback about things that you would love to learn more about, or tips that you've learned that you could share with our community. In our next episode, we will discuss the use of artificial intelligence in mental health. So be sure to subscribe and rate the Women's Digital Health podcast wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Sign up for our newsletter to get even more information about improving your mental health using digital technologies. And make sure you like us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok. All the best to the start of the 2024 new year and bye for now. Sometimes people live in different communities where they may not necessarily have a particular specialist in that area. And telehealth levels the playing field. It increases the access to these people who may not otherwise have that. And we'll talk more about some of the other benefits that telehealth has.