Telehealth counseling benefits, limitations & risks
Your telehealth session will involve direct face to face communication through a HIPAA compliant program on your web browser. There are benefits and limitations to this service.
Limitations can include:
- Regardless of the sophistication of today’s technology, meeting with someone through technology is not the same as meeting with someone in person. Some information my practitioner would ordinarily get in in-person consultation may not be available in teleconsultation, such as some body language. The sense of connection and understanding that people can enjoy when they are in each other’s physical presence can feel diminished when sessions are conducted through technology.
- I understand that such missing information could in some situations make it more difficult for my practitioner to understand my problems and to help me get better.
- Sessions can be disrupted by video frames freezing, audio difficulties, loss of either video or audio, syncing difficulties between audio and video images.
- Meeting outside of the therapy office puts greater burden on you to ensure your own confidentiality. You must have a place where you can be uninterrupted and have privacy for the entire duration of your appointment.
- Your practitioner will be unable to render any in-person emergency assistance if you experience a crisis while in session.
Benefits can include:
- Decreased disruption in your care when you are unable to come to your appointment in person.
- Increased access to care by overcoming barriers like travel time, geographical distance, illness, etc.
- Ability to receive care even if one of your struggles includes leaving your home.
Risks can include:
- I understand that tele-behavioral health is a new delivery method for professional services, in an area not yet fully validated by research, and may have potential risks, possibly including some that are not yet recognized.
- Among the risks that are presently recognized is the possibility that the technology will fail before or during the consultation, that the transmitted information in any form will be unclear or inadequate for proper use in the consultation(s), and that the information will be intercepted by an unauthorized person or persons.
- In rare instances, security protocols could fail, causing a breach of privacy of personal health information. I understand that a physical examination may be performed by individuals at my location at the request of the consulting practitioner.