April 20: Therapist Billing for Giving Support to Members
Hello Everyone!
In this thread, we announced the therapist directory and community! All along our goal has been to set up a system where therapists can give support using our platform. This week, we will be launching the billing component of this update. Here is how it will work:
- A member who would like to sign up to pay for online therapy will be able brought to a payment screen upon selecting a therapist.
- We ask them to enter their payment information. With a special notice, that they will not be charged till 5 messages have been exchanged between them and their chosen therapist. This will need to include at least 1 reply from the therapist. The goal here to ensure that your therapist is a good fit for you. We want to give you room to find someone who is a good match for you before billing kicks in.
- Once you have selected your therapist, they are your therapist for the month. You will not be able to change therapists once you have hit that 5 message count.
- The monthly rate will be $150 per month. It is a recurring payment but you can cancel at any time.
As a reminder, only members who are 18+ will be able to connect to a therapist for support.
This will be live in the next 24 - 48 hours!
@Laura will the listeners get paid?
@NightRain25
No listeners will not receive compensation.
Listeners are strictly volunteer-based. The reason for this is because it allows people who cant afford therapy or cant get therapy (such as teens) to still have a way to receive emotional and mental support.
@AdVictoriam another reason for not paying listeners is they are not professional psychologists and are not certified to do therapy, that is the primary reason for asking for fees.
Of course a listener that is also becoming or is already certified could be both a listener and a therapist.
@Laura Another step towards making 7cups a better therapeutic environment. Thank you
@Laura @LaraG
Hi, according to this thread, it's 5 messages. I have heard 10. But when I did sign up it said 3 day trial. Which one is the actual one?
And how do I go about changing my therapist if I do want to change them before the 3 day trial ends?
What ever happened to being able to message the therapist from the profile? Is that not yet a feature?
Will I have to enter the credit card details again after, if I just have to switch therapists, if ever? Because I had just asked my friend to pay for this for me... since i dont have a credit card or paypal..
Thanks if you reply.
@SunsetMorpho
The 3 day trial is what we currently do (no more messages exchanged). You have the opportunity to change your therapist one time & you can do this via your settings page. We launched Sophia to help with the matching process. When Sophia went live, we removed the messaging directly from the profile page element.
You do not need to enter your credit card details after the 3 day trial.
Please continue to check for updates in this newly formed forum category.
Hope this helps!!!
@Laura How do you cancel? I messaged one randomly picked therapist 3 days ago, I dont like the randomness, nor ability to not specify female or male, anyways, no response after 2 days, so I want to cancel the 'trial' to not be billed.
@faradrift
There should be cancel instructions for you when you signed up! Please follow those!
@Laura what happens if we'd like to choose a therapist, since, initially, there was the idea of messaging them directly, and so I had browsed through available therapists to make sure to narrow down who I think might be a good fit. Is there no way to have them instead? When switching?
@SunsetMorpho
You can mail @larag (lara@7cups.com) to make a request. :)
@Laura Hi I am trying to switch therapist through my settings page, but cannot find anywhere that allows me to switch. I have become a paying member, and I do not want the therapist I was automatically matched with. I would be very grateful if you could talk me through how to switch step by step.
Thank you for your time!
You need to break down the price. You say it's affordable but $150 is expensive for a month. Do weekly or bi-weekly if you can't cut the price down, break it down so people can decide for themselves if they want to continue. Is it regular person you are actually talking to or robot.
@Melanie3760 Currently there is a robot (Sophia) who takes some information from you to explain the process and to match one up with a therapist. The therapists are real people with education and credentials, the payment isn't to talk to a robot. The listeners on the site (not therapy) are also real people and that's free.
I agree that more flexibility in terms of the time period would be useful. Someone may just want a week's worth of messaging with a therapist each month.