Feb 4
Latest post from TherapySafetyNet to help make our volunteer network of socially responsible therapists known to referral sources and the uninsured New Yorkers we aim to reach: Two Simple Steps to Help Promote TherapySafetyNet.
Introducing the New TherapySafetyNet.org Website.
Today the new TherapySafetyNet website goes live. We have developed a fresh new design with increased simplicity and usability.
As before, the site includes our directory of socially responsible therapists–psychologists and social workers practicing in Manhattan and Brooklyn, each of whom is committed to our cooperative vision of providing affordable psychotherapy to uninsured New Yorkers.
Tags are strictly applied to identify participating clinicians’ locations and areas of expertise. The tag cloud on the lower left side of each page provides easy reference to identify clinicians with particular areas of expertise. For example, the addictions and substance abuse tag will reveal an indexed list of therapists with that specialization.
We have intentionally omitted contact information for our participating clinicians on the publicly visible parts of the website. Rather than contacting a therapist directly, we ask prospective clients to submit a secure online application to request a referral to the therapist of their choice. Prospective clients may apply for services via the Client Inquiry page.
For those prospective clients who are not eligible for a referral through TherapySafetyNet, we have provided lists of additional mental health resources, including resources for New Yorkers with health insurance and low cost resources for those without health insurance.
Whereas before our public and private areas were divided between two sites, the new site incorporates both information for the public and password protected pages for participating clinicians. Information for prospective clinicians interested in joining our coalition may be found here.
We welcome contributors to our news section. While our news section will continue to present announcements about TherapySafetyNet, we have envisioned this as a place for opinion and commentary on healthcare reform as it impacts mental health services. Volunteer bloggers, please contact us.
Please explore the new website and share it with your friends and colleagues. Everyone knows someone who is uninsured and someday may be in need of an affordable option for psychotherapy. Please help us spread the word by subscribing, reposting, reblogging, and helping TherapySafetyNet be known in the community.
TherapySafetyNet was founded in 2007 by Dr. Geoffrey Steinberg to address the mental health needs of New Yorkers who would otherwise fall through the cracks. An estimated 1.2 million New York city residents do not have employer-sponsored health insurance, yet do not qualify for publicly-funded programs such as Medicare or Medicaid.
Administered by its volunteer coalition members, TherapySafetyNet operates as a free referral service to connect uninsured New Yorkers with affordable psychotherapy in private practice settings. Each of our participating psychologists and social workers work with uninsured clients at significantly reduced fees according to an income-sensitive sliding scale.
In 2011, TherapySafetyNet undertook a self-study project to evaluate and document its performance over its first four years of service. The results of this project may be found here. To learn more about our coalition and the services we offer, visit TherapySafetyNet.org.
Antioch University New England Notes, Winter 2012
I thought you might be interested in a project I’ve been working on the past four years. I founded a coalition of New York psychologists and social workers, www.TherapySafetyNet.org. Our organization operates as a free referral service to help uninsured New Yorkers afford psychotherapy in private practice settings. Our target demographic is uninsured workers who would otherwise fall through the cracks–earning too much to qualify for Medicaid or other public programs, yet not insured by their employers. Membership in our coalition offers psychotherapists in private practice an organized way of fulfilling the ethical obligation to devote some portion of one’s practice to those in need for little or no compensation.
Geoffrey Steinberg CP (Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology) ’05
Psychologists and social workers who participate in TherapySafetyNet’s coalition of socially responsible therapists celebrated our organization’s four-year anniversary over dinner on October 2, 2011.
Main finding:
“Since its inception, TherapySafetyNet has served a valuable role in metropolitan New York by assisting prospective clients in finding mental health services they can afford. Of the 300 outcomes recorded since 2007, we have referred 103 uninsured clients to participating psychologists and social workers in private practice at significantly reduced fees, thus connecting uninsured New Yorkers with psychotherapy of a quality that would otherwise be inaccessible and unaffordable.”
Read the full report here: Therapy Safety Net: Four Year Outcome Evaluation of a Free Referral Service for Uninsured New Yorkers
In my role as director of TherapySafetyNet, met with leadership of MilestonesNYC to collaborate on shared organizational missions to increase access to mental health care for uninsured New Yorkers.
I came up with the concept of TherapySafetyNet in September 2007. I was receiving more calls from prospective clients than I could accept into my practice, and some of them stood out because they seemed stuck in a kind of benefits purgatory. Uninsured, their income was too high to qualify for social services, yet their employers offered no healthcare coverage. It was hit or miss to suggest alternate referrals to those prospective clients. While I’ve always got an assortment of excellent colleagues to suggest, at any given time most would have only one or two potential openings on a ‘sliding scale.’ At the same time, I had extra web site capacity, so I thought, is there any way these elements could be put together to help?
So what started as a bit of web site tooling around in my living room became TherapySafetyNet.org, a free referral service to connect uninsured New Yorkers with socially responsible therapists in private practice.
We’ve grown considerably, and experienced our share of growth pains along the way. TherapySafetyNet is now a coalition of psychologists and social workers in private practice, each of whom agrees to devote some portion of their work to uninsured clients at a significantly reduced fee.
As we grew in both membership and client inquiries, the administrative demands became too much for me to do alone. Several professionals in our coalition pitched in with the labor involved, notably Evelyn Shaw, LMSW, Donna Seroff, LCSW, Laura Freiman, LCSW, and Janis McAdams, Psy.D. The very heart of our service is made of their tireless volunteer efforts, individually handling each inquiry and referral, as well as contributing to the development of TherapySafetyNet as an organization.
In a typical month, 15 to 20 uninsured people contact us for help securing a referral for affordable therapy. Considering the fact that an estimated 1.2 million uninsured people are living in New York City, we are barely reaching our intended audience. One of our biggest challenges is to make our service widely known. To this end, we’ve done outreach to other organizations such as the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) that may encounter uninsured New Yorkers and refer them to us. We’ve made our services known to local colleges whose students are not required to have health insurance. Our services are listed with organizations that serve local artists, such as The Field and Dance Elephant. And TherapySafetyNet’s page on Facebook receives 100 visitors in an average week. Beyond these achievements, our need for help with public relations remains strong.
We’ve gone through considerable turnover in our professional membership in the past two and half years. In the beginning we did not do a good enough job making it clear to interested mental health professionals how TherapySafetyNet differs from other websites that present directories of therapists in private practice. For some time, we faced differences in expectations–therapists who were willing to reduce their fees slightly, but not far enough to meet the actual needs of uninsured people. By now, we have addressed this discrepancy through more rigorous membership requirements.
To be clear, membership in TherapySafetyNet is not for every New York psychologist or social worker under the sun. What we offer is an organized way to fulfill the ethical imperative to devote some portion of one’s practice to working with clients in need, for little or no compensation. We continue to invite socially responsible therapists to join our coalition, and our need currently is greatest for those practicing in Brooklyn.
Please visit www.TherapySafetyNet.org to learn more about our efforts to help uninsured New Yorkers find quality, affordable psychothearpy.
Geoffrey Steinberg, Psy.D.
Executive Director
TherapySafetyNet
www.TherapySafetyNet.org
TherapySafetyNet is a new project designed to address the mental health needs of uninsured New Yorkers. The organizing vision is for everyone to have access to affordable mental health care.
A wide gap exists in mental health coverage in the United States.
At one end of the scale are people who can afford to pay for psychotherapy out-of-pocket and people whose employers provide health insurance with decent mental health benefits.
At the other end of the scale are those individuals who qualify for public benefits such as Medicare and Medicaid.
This leaves in the middle a vast population: part-time workers, temporary workers, students, and many others.
TherapySafetyNet is designed to meet the needs of New Yorkers in this middle ground.
I conceived this project to connect uninsured people and the local psychotherapists who are willing to work them at a reduced rate.
On TherapySafetyNet.org you’ll find many ways to get involved:
