COVID-19 and Your Therapy Practice
With all that is currently evolving around COVID-19, I wanted to reach out to help any therapist or other health and wellness practitioner that is navigating how to keep their business going while protecting themselves, their families, their clients and community.
As this pandemic continues to evolve, I recommend if you need up to date information, visiting the CDC’s (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) website at https://www.cdc.gov
What You Can Do in Your Therapy Practice
Good news is, there are ways you can continue to serve your clients if you aren’t able to see them in-person in your office.
One way is via phone. During this time, you can meet with your clients through phone sessions.
Another way is online via a secure HIPAA platform such as Zoom: https://zoom.us or Vichee https://vsee.com
The above are just two examples of online options that are secure. Please remember, if you opt for an online platform, you’ll also need to sign a BAA (business associate agreement), this will help ensure HIPAA compliance. Each platform will have these, some are included for free and some charge. But, either way, a BAA is required so please make sure you look into this and sign one as you decide on an online platform that’s best for you.
Reasons to Consider Phone or Online Therapy or Health/Wellness Sessions
During this time, it’s important to be safe and cautious to protect yourself, your family, clients, and community…
This also means you might be closing down in-person sessions – or – clients might be cancelling in person sessions. There are a number of significant and important reasons for this:
- Some might be cautious and afraid of the current situation and are staying home to take necessary precautions to protect themselves and others.
- Other reasons also include clients that might be caring for elderly parents or grandparents and are taking the necessary precautionary measures to keep their family safe.
- With school closures, they might be staying home to care for their children making it impossible to come in for an in-person session.
- They might not be feeling well and are staying home to take necessary care measures
There can be other reasons in addition to the ones above…all of these are important decisions that people are making to keep everyone safe.
To help support all that you and your clients are doing, online sessions and phone sessions can help support your work together during this time.
More Information on Online Therapy
If you’re interested in online therapy and having that as option, but have questions, please feel free to reach out to me. I’d be glad to help answer questions and also help walk you through all you need to know to begin getting an online practice up and running…