Headway Review 2024—Connect With a Therapist Who Accepts Insurance
Headway
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What’s the hype with Headway? The highly touted therapy platform is making waves among mental healthcare providers and patients. But when you look closely it’s not hard to see why the service rocketed from humble startup status to a billion-dollar company within a few years: Headway fulfills a vital role in the world of talk therapy, streamlining the otherwise time-consuming and headache-inducing process of finding a therapist who fits your needs (and accepts insurance).
And Headway helps folks on both sides of the mental healthcare coin: Multiple providers I spoke with touted the platform’s utility in their practices. “As a provider, it's the ideal way to work with insurance,” says Natalie J. Fraize, owner and licensed therapist at Vitality Counseling Center in Buffalo. “They help with prompt biweekly payments that aren't delayed by insurance processing.”
This content is meant to be informative, but should not be taken as medical advice. It is not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention or treatment of health problems. Always speak with a professional care provider before starting any new wellness regimen. If you are in crisis, call your doctor or 911 immediately. If you're having suicidal thoughts, call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to talk to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area at any time (National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). If you are located outside the U.S., call a local emergency line immediately.
What is Headway?
Headway (not to be confused with the nifty sounding but unrelated Headway book-summarizing app) is an online therapy platform that connects patients to providers, and providers to insurance billing services. Michelle Giordano, Community Counselor and Outreach Specialist for Live Another Day, says Headway is easy to use: “Headway has become well-known for its accessibility and user-friendly design,” she says. The website definitely has an ease about it and a zen tone befitting for a therapy platform. Think lots of comforting white space and playful illustrations.
And if you’re a patient seeking mental healthcare services, the website is where you’ll start the journey with Headway.
Headway
Technically, you only have to submit your state of residence to get started. However, you can narrow your selections further by adding your type of mental health concern (such as anxiety, ADHD, trauma, trouble sleeping, etc.) and insurance carrier. From there, Headway will furnish a list of providers, which in my state (North Carolina) produced an impressive 1,000+ providers. In total more than 22,000 have signed onto the platform across the participating states, and Headway says it’s adding new professionals every day.
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Speaking of participating states, Headway isn’t available everywhere—at least not yet. These are the 22 locations where Headway is available:
- Arizona
- California
- Colorado
- Connecticut
- District of Columbia
- Florida
- Georgia
- Illinois
- Maryland
- Massachusetts
- Michigan
- Minnesota
- New Jersey
- New York
- North Carolina
- Ohio
- Oregon
- Pennsylvania
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Virginia
- Washington
After you’ve narrowed down your search by location, insurance and therapeutic concern, you can apply further filters to help you find the ideal provider. Filters include the times of day the provider is available, gender, ethnicity and therapeutic approach, among others. Here’s an aspect I found particularly helpful when searching: Each provider’s at-a-glance namecard tells you about their style in highly approachable language, using descriptors like ”warm,” “empowering,” “direct” and “solution-oriented.” Those attributes are a lot more meaningful than the jargon-filled terms you often see when perusing providers.
Headway
Benefits of Headway for Patients Seeking Care
Many of us have been there: You start a new relationship with a therapist and it just doesn’t click. The straightforward but descriptive way Headway has its providers attribute qualities to themselves is a great way to make a more informed choice, or as licensed counselor Sarah Reid put it, “Allowing these descriptors might create a better therapeutic match.”
The highly filterable nature of provider styles and availability also makes it easy to find clinicians who fit your unique needs and schedule. And although teletherapy is the more popular offering, you can filter for providers who do in-person visits as well.
Another of the primary benefits of Headway is that even after you’ve established a relationship with a provider, Headway remains in a helpful capacity, fostering communication with your therapist. “Within the platform, clients can message their therapist, allowing for continued communication and support outside of scheduled appointments,” Giordano says. “This function may be especially useful in emergency situations where consumers may require prompt aid or direction.”
Best of all, Headway is free to use. You just have to have insurance to get started.
Note that a mental health crisis requiring immediate care should be addressed by calling a 24 hour hotline or 911.
Benefits of Headway for Care Providers
However, Headway isn’t just a sophisticated directory for consumers to find mental health practitioners that accept their insurance. Headway is also a virtual assistant of sorts for the therapist. Kimberly Parker, licensed therapist at Healthy Mind Counseling & Nutrition, sums up what she likes about the platform: “I am in a Headway group and many therapists, including myself, love the easy process. It eliminates you having to be consumed with administrative work.”
And Headway’s administrative side, especially when it comes to negotiating insurance reimbursement, problem-solves perhaps the biggest reason most therapists won’t accept insurance. “Negotiating contracts is huge, as insurance companies usually do not negotiate rates with individual practitioners,” Reid says. Consequently, she adds, the therapists on Headway may be making a higher rate than those listed by your insurance directory, allowing them to be more experienced.
But the helpful nature of Headway doesn’t stop with the accounting and insurance verification/billing: “You can chart your notes and it has drop-down tabs for diagnosis and treatment planning,” she says. “You can schedule your client's appointments, you can view when you will be paid and how much as well and you can send direct messages to your clients.”
Our Experience With Headway
“Headway made it incredibly easy to keep track of my appointments and immediately pay my co-pays right before my therapy appointments,” says Senior Editor Taylyn Washington-Harmon. Although she “initially found my therapist on Alma,” the provider then transferred to Headway.
While the transition from Alma was initially “a little jarring,” with the guidance of her care provider she settled into the new Headway platform. Weekly sessions were conducted on a HIPPA-compliant video chat app platform (not furnished by Headway), and lasted 45-50 minutes each, she says. Washington-Harmon says the level of care on Headway was top-tier. “My therapist was well-vetted to be allowed on Headway and was the best I have ever had,” she says. “She was also a licensed psychiatrist, which helped me receive the proper diagnoses and medication I needed.”
She worked with her Headway provider for two years before relocating to another state (appointments—even virtual ones—must be conducted with a provider in your same state for insurance reasons). She says the offboarding process was simple, and while it’s unfortunate that she can no longer view her previous appointments in Headway, the company kept her insurance and payment information on file, making it easy to find another provider on the platform in the future.
Headway Confidentiality and Security
“My biggest reservation was concern that they would sell client data,” Reid says. “Some third party sites, such as BetterHelp, have done that. Headway does not.”
And a commitment to confidentiality is vital, given the vulnerable nature of therapy.
“The platform gives customer privacy and confidentiality top priority,” Giordano agrees. “It offers safe routes for communication, guaranteeing that private information disclosed during therapy sessions is kept private.”
Why Platforms Like Headway Are More Vital Than Ever
Finding the right in-network doctor alone can be a tricky process to navigate among easier specialties. With therapists, however, finding affordable, quality care is even trickier, since 70 percent don’t accept insurance. A comprehensive directory like Headway that collectively negotiates with insurance companies on behalf of providers creates a level of access and affordability that may otherwise be beyond reach.
And it’s vital to forge more connections between patients and mental health providers, since the need is greater than ever, especially among young people. It’s a problem so prolific colleges have turned to teletherapy platforms like Talkspace to fill staffing gaps since there aren’t enough full-time social workers on-campus to address the crisis. “In 2021 more than 4 in 10 (42 percent) students felt persistently sad or hopeless and nearly one-third (29 percent) experienced poor mental health.” And Headway does welcome providers who treat children and teens on the platform, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Even if your mental health concerns don’t rise to a certain level of severity, talking to a therapist is a great form of self-care. For example, a therapist can help you form better habits, setting you up in thrive in ways that you may never have envisioned possible prior to therapy.
Headway Therapy FAQs
How much does Headway cost?
You must have insurance to use Headway, and the cost per session will vary based on your specific healthcare plan.
What insurance plans does Headway accept?
As to the health plans Headway partners with, the answer will vary state-to-state and provider-to-provider. A few of the biggest partnerships you’ll see though are Cigna, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield and United Healthcare.
Does Headway have psychiatric services?
Yes, providers with the necessary credentialing for psychiatric services are available, including psychiatrists and nurse practitioners. You can filter for “medication management” with the search feature to quickly find a provider.
How many people use Headway?
There aren’t exact statistics available about the numbers of Headway users, however, among the 22,000 providers on the platform, patients have received 1.875 million hours of care in 2022.
Can you see providers in-person on Headway?
Yes, although you’re welcome to pop in your earbuds and perform virtual visits, many Headway therapists also welcome in-office visits.
Final Thoughts
Fraize says she was initially skeptical of Headway: “I thought I was missing something because it seemed too good to be true,” she says. “It's been a year and a half and it was one of the best decisions I made early on when I started my practice.”
As a therapy platform, Headway offers convenience, privacy, user-friendly tools, various therapeutic modalities and timely support, making it a valuable resource for both clients and mental health professionals. Overall, Headway is recommended for therapists looking for an easier way to manage their practices. Plus, the valuable features it furnishes don’t require a monthly fee. Plus, Parker notes, therapists can always transition back to their original electronic medical record if they decide to stop using Headway, so “your practice still belongs to you regardless.”
Full transparency too: I perused the r/therapists subreddit to make sure there wasn’t something about Headway I was missing based on the concerningly low rating from TrustPilot.com. In the end, I got the impression that a lot of those gripes are an inevitability when dealing with the complex world of health insurance billing. Or, as one redditor writes, “Sometimes they make billing mistakes (As every billing company I have ever worked with does) but they are fixed pretty quickly.”
Fraize says that other billers not only often make mistakes, they also take a chunk of your earnings, whereas Headway only keeps the co-payment. “Some billers want 10 percent of your earnings, and I have had situations where billers were charging me for services they did not complete, they took a long time to process my billing and I lost a lot of money,” she says.
Headway assures that you will be paid and they have negotiated with insurance to make sure you are paid at the highest rate. In turn, they keep the copay and I believe that is a great exchange for all of the incentives that they provide.”
“I definitely recommend Headway,” Fraize adds. “My clients have generally reported good experiences. Their customer service usually responds to emails promptly and they are on top of changes or errors.”
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