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Do you want to get insurance benefits for your clients while you can still be paid your full cash fee rate? How can you make therapy accessible to your community without sacrificing your income security from having to deal with unreliable insurance networks? Have you heard about Mentaya?
In this podcast episode, Joe Sanok speaks about out-of-network billing, private pay, and how to help clients with Christine Li from Mentaya.
Podcast Sponsor: WellReceived
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Meet Christine Li
Christine Li, the founder & CEO of Mentaya, is an enthusiastic advocate for therapists. She firmly believes that therapists can build successful cash-pay private practices while being part of making mental healthcare accessible.
Christine started Mentaya to simplify the complexities of out-of-network billing, ensuring that therapists collect their full cash rate while helping clients use their insurance benefits to get up to 80% back on private pay therapy. Before Mentaya, Christine was a product manager at Google, where she mastered the art of building delightful product experiences.
Visit Mentaya, and connect on Instagram.
FREEBIE: Sign up to Mentaya with the code JOE to try the Instant Benefits Calculator for free for a month!
- Creating the services that therapists need
- Terminology to know
- Why people are moving away from taking insurance
- How Mentaya helps you
- Christine’s advice to private practitioners
Creating the services that therapists need
Christine wants therapists to thrive through out-of-pay and private network since she understands the value of therapy, as well as how important it is to be accessible.
Before I even started Mentaya, I talked to a lot of therapists because I didn’t want to be one of those people who, you know, came in with a tech-background and was like, ‘I’m going to just solve this problem …’, I wanted to do my research and talk to therapists. (Christine Li)
People in business know that the right product needs to serve the right needs, and therefore Christine made sure to speak to therapists to understand their pain points and what they are struggling with so that she could design a product that helps them.
From this research, and Christine’s background, Mentaya was born.
I was like, ‘There’s a huge gap here where people don’t realize that they might have out-of-network benefits, and be able to get insurance to cover part of the cost of therapy, even if [you] are private pay. (Christine Li)
Terminology to know
- In-network or panelled: when a therapist works with an insurance company and takes client insurance which means you have to bill insurance to be paid out
- Out-of-network, private pay, or cash pay: where the client pays you the full cash fee
- Superbill: a PDF form that shows a client has seen you which they can give to their insurance companies for reimbursement
Why people are moving away from taking insurance
The research has shown that insurance payout rates to therapists often have not kept up with inflation, and some have even gone down, meaning that the therapist gets less payout from the insurance for the same work as before.
Obviously [therapists] want to be accessible, but they’re starting to get fed up with the low rates [and] … taking insurance is not being sustainable financially for them anymore. (Christine Li)
Many therapists have started exclusively doing cash pay since they are frustrated with insurance companies paying them less and less money for the value of their time and expertise.
Therefore, a company like Mentaya is great since it allows clients to get insurance payouts while the therapists can be paid their full fees.
How Mentaya helps you
You can think of Mentaya as your out-of-network billing and admin team. Through Mentaya, you can get access to a checker for your client’s benefits so that they can see what they can get back, which is also a great marketing tool for you.
Additionally, Mentaya’s team takes care of submitting all of your claims to insurance, and all they need from you is to verify when a session happens and will take care of any follow-ups with a direct support team for the clients.
Christine’s advice to private practitioners
You are making a huge difference in people’s lives!
Sponsors Mentioned in this episode:
- Head to WellReceived.com/joe to start growing your practice today.
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Useful links mentioned in this episode:
- Visit Mentaya, and connect on Instagram.
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Email Joe at [email protected] to suggest guests for the show
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Meet Joe Sanok
Joe Sanok helps counselors to create thriving practices that are the envy of other counselors. He has helped counselors to grow their businesses by 50-500% and is proud of all the private practice owners who are growing their income, influence, and impact on the world. Click here to explore consulting with Joe.
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