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Yeah I'm sure the therapy will be covered by the amazing mental health benefits these moderators receive through the no-cost health insurance provided by Accent

Yeah I'm sure the therapy will be covered by the amazing mental health benefits these moderators receive through the no-cost health insurance provided by Accenture. If not, they'll have no trouble at all paying out of pocket with that cushy $14.50/hr they're making!

perl4ever 7y ago
There is something (in the US) askew about mental health coverage. I think that regulations were passed to try to get mental health conditions treated more like others, but it seems like there is a shortage of counselors, social workers, and doctors, much more than other kinds of medical professionals. I have this feeling that there's something about the incentive structure under the ACA that is choking off the availability, but I'm not sure what exactly it is. I'm very curious about the economics of running a mental health practice these days. If you can't pay $70-140/hr to talk to a social worker every week or two, they may well offer you the option of online chat for $150/month. But I feel like there is a mystery there, because why should it cost that much? And yet, the people who charge that much seem desperately overworked and barely functional. Where does the money go? Not to doctors, because everything is done by non-MDs these days. Not to insurance, because deductibles are in the thousands.
- tru3_power 7y ago
  I’ve been wondering this too- especially since I’ve always heard that fields like psychology are “over saturated” and that there are tons of people with psychology degrees that can’t find jobs. Seems like if this is true there is a change for a win/win here (people get jobs and cheaper mental health care)
  - kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
    The majority of the excess psych grads did so because it was an "easy" degree. Few are qualified for work in the field. This is accounted for by the hard to enter graduate programs.
- staticautomatic 7y ago
  The issue is that mental health providers are grouped separately from other doctors and health care professionals on the insurance side. Different insurers, accordingly, have dramatically different networks of mental health professionals which vary in size and quality mostly depending on the reimbursement rate. Low-paying insurers have worse networks. Some don't even manage their own mental health benefits. In the bay area, for example, Blue Shield's benefits are managed by another insurer named Magellan with famously shitty rates and a correspondingly shitty network of available professionals.
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Perhaps, but specific problems of the bay area or some insurance networks being insufficient are beside my point. The providers that exist are generally in-network with the insurance plans I'm aware of in my area, it's just that they seem to be overtaxed and mostly not taking new patients. I'm saying, in an area where $50K a year is a decent living, and people take for granted that an actual MD is not available in most cases, why is $70+/hr not translating into supply? It reminds me of my former employer, which was not healthcare, but they were billing clients something like five times what they paid staff, and yet their response was never to try to increase the hours billed and hire more people, but only to squeeze and squeeze costs and shrink through attrition as though they were losing money. As a matter of fact, I really should ask someone I know who works for NAMI.

perl4ever 7y ago

There is something (in the US) askew about mental health coverage. I think that regulations were passed to try to get mental health conditions treated more like others, but it seems like there is a shortage of counselors, social workers, and doctors, much more than other kinds of medical professionals. I have this feeling that there's something about the incentive structure under the ACA that is choking off the availability, but I'm not sure what exactly it is. I'm very curious about the economics of running a mental health practice these days. If you can't pay $70-140/hr to talk to a social worker every week or two, they may well offer you the option of online chat for $150/month. But I feel like there is a mystery there, because why should it cost that much? And yet, the people who charge that much seem desperately overworked and barely functional. Where does the money go? Not to doctors, because everything is done by non-MDs these days. Not to insurance, because deductibles are in the thousands.

tru3_power 7y ago
I’ve been wondering this too- especially since I’ve always heard that fields like psychology are “over saturated” and that there are tons of people with psychology degrees that can’t find jobs. Seems like if this is true there is a change for a win/win here (people get jobs and cheaper mental health care)
- kevin_thibedeau 7y ago
  The majority of the excess psych grads did so because it was an "easy" degree. Few are qualified for work in the field. This is accounted for by the hard to enter graduate programs.
staticautomatic 7y ago
The issue is that mental health providers are grouped separately from other doctors and health care professionals on the insurance side. Different insurers, accordingly, have dramatically different networks of mental health professionals which vary in size and quality mostly depending on the reimbursement rate. Low-paying insurers have worse networks. Some don't even manage their own mental health benefits. In the bay area, for example, Blue Shield's benefits are managed by another insurer named Magellan with famously shitty rates and a correspondingly shitty network of available professionals.
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Perhaps, but specific problems of the bay area or some insurance networks being insufficient are beside my point. The providers that exist are generally in-network with the insurance plans I'm aware of in my area, it's just that they seem to be overtaxed and mostly not taking new patients. I'm saying, in an area where $50K a year is a decent living, and people take for granted that an actual MD is not available in most cases, why is $70+/hr not translating into supply? It reminds me of my former employer, which was not healthcare, but they were billing clients something like five times what they paid staff, and yet their response was never to try to increase the hours billed and hire more people, but only to squeeze and squeeze costs and shrink through attrition as though they were losing money. As a matter of fact, I really should ask someone I know who works for NAMI.