What is telehealth?
Telehealth lets a doctor or licensed counselor provide care for you without an in-person office visit. Telehealth uses the internet access on your computer, tablet, or smartphone, to connect you to your healthcare provider from anywhere.

What do you need for a telehealth visit?
All therapy sessions at Carolina Behavioral Therapy are conducted via synchronous telehealth. This refers to telehealth that provides two-way interaction between a patient and a medical professional. In order to participate in your session, you will need a computer, tablet, or smartphone with video capability and internet access or strong phone signal coverage. You’ll also need to be in a location that offers privacy and is free of distractions or disruptions.

To conduct our sessions, CBT therapists use the HIPPA compliant version of the Zoom app. We recommend that you download Zoom in advance of your first appointment, to avoid using valuable session time to resolve technical issues.

Are telehealth sessions recorded?
No, telehealth sessions are not recorded. The app we use for our sessions is specifically designed for telehealth usage, and all services are encrypted. Although sessions are not recorded, our team will maintain an information file for each of our patients that may contain notes from a session.

Carolina Behavioral Therapy adheres to all HIPAA requirements for patient confidentiality.

How do you conduct an online counseling session?
An online counseling session is conducted in exactly the same way you would conduct an in-person counseling session. At CBT, our therapists use evidence-based treatments, specializing in DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy), PE (prolonged exposure), and ERP (exposure and response therapy). Sessions are structured according to the treatment principles, or protocols, being utilized. The only difference between in-person and virtual therapy is we are not sitting in the same room together.

Although patients can attend their session from any location, licensure laws require that Carolina Behavioral Therapy patients must be residents of North or South Carolina and must be present, in the state, at the time of the service.

Is virtual counseling as effective as in-person?
Multiple studies suggest that telehealth is just as effective as in-person counseling. According to a study conducted by David Mohr, PhD, telehealth and in-person typically result in similar outcomes. As the director of the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, Mohr compared the outcomes of cognitive behavioral therapy sessions conducted via phone versus in-person for 325 patients. The results were comparable, and the virtual parents were LESS likely to drop out of therapy.

Furthermore, although committing to a new approach to mental health care may seem daunting, according to the 2020 Amwell Physician and Consumer Survey, the COVID-19 pandemic has tripled the amount of people who have completed a telehealth appointment, with the majority reporting positive outcomes, and 65% of consumers who have not yet used telehealth are “very” or “somewhat” willing to do so.

What are the advantages of virtual counseling?
Some of the advantages of virtual counseling include:

• Access to mental health care from anywhere – your home, your office, or while traveling*
• Increased access to specialists who may not be located in your area
• Eliminating the commute to and from your appointment, decreasing the amount of time you’re away from work
• Eliminating or simplifying the need to find child care
• Lowering the wait times for appointments. And if your appointment involves a wait, you can utilize that time more productively, without dragging work or other materials into an office waiting room
• Less exposure to COVID-19 and other viruses. If you are quarantined or symptomatic but feeling well enough to attend your session, you can do so without exposing others to your symptoms

*As noted previously, although patients can attend their session from any location, licensure laws require that Carolina Behavioral Therapy patients must be residents of North or South Carolina and must be present, in the state, at the time of the service.