Saturday, March 25th
2023 Online Therapy Reviews
Brightside Health
- Monthly subscription starting at $299/month
- Works with some insurance
- Cognitive behavioral therapy
- Offers prescriptions
Brightside Health is a service for online therapy and medication management. In business for 5 years, the site is targeted toward adults with depression or anxiety. Brightside primarily utilizes cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to address depression and anxiety concerns. Brightside is a monthly subscription service that also offers a medication plan for adults looking for more than just counseling from their mental health service.
Package deals
Brightside offers a therapy plan and a medication plan. The therapy plan includes four 30-minute video sessions per month. This also includes unlimited private messaging with your therapist. This basic plan costs $299 per month. If you need additional video sessions, they are available for purchase at $59 per session. The separate Medication Plan costs $95 per month, and you still have to pay for the prescription itself either with your insurance co-pay or in full if you don't have insurance. Altogether, Brightside's therapy and medication services cost $349 per month. However, their program is covered by some insurance companies.
Provider network of professionals
Brightside offers what they call a "provider network" which includes psychiatrists, physicians, psychiatric nurse practitioners, and therapists. All of the experienced professionals with Brightside's network have graduated from US medical schools and have current licenses. Brightside also hosts a clinical advisory board that evaluates the professionals and cases at Brightside Health. These board members graduated from top institutions both in the US and overseas.
Therapy style
Brightside's online therapy options are available across the US to adults only. The program's therapy sessions are geared toward individuals who may be experiencing or suffering from:
- Depression
- Bipolar II
- Anxiety
- Phobias
- OCD
- Panic disorders
- Seasonal affective disorder (SAD)
- Insomnia
And, if you take part in their medication program, you can also receive medication for these concerns if your therapist and you believe it will be beneficial.
Some patients are excluded here
However, Brightside will not be a good fit for individuals who fit the following criteria. They recommend seeing a Primary Care doctor if you have:
- Made a suicide attempt or experienced active suicide planning
- Experienced ongoing, high-risk self-harm behavior
- Been hospitalized involuntarily in the recent past for psychiatric reasons
- Been diagnosed with schizophrenia or any symptoms of psychosis
- Been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder I or experience symptoms of mania
- Experienced substance abuse problems
- Been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder
- Experienced an eating disorder with high-risk symptoms
- Been diagnosed with kidney or liver disease, seizures, or long QT
- Come seeking treatment/prescriptions for ADHD
Negative reviews
While a lot of their practices sound good at face value, the clients are saying something different. Brightside Health received a "D-" score at the Better Business Bureau and is not accredited by the BBB. The reviews for Brightside average 1-star ratings and customers agree that Brightside Health is overpriced with unreliable service.
Customer complaints
Some reviewers complained about being dropped from the prescription program with no warning, or that the company "holds medication hostage" so that customers don't have access to their meds without seeing a primary care doctor. Further, the short sessions (30 minutes) seem even shorter in practice with some customers complaining about only getting 20 or even 15 minutes of screen time with their therapist. In general, customers don't have many nice things to say about Brightside Health
Not so bright future at Brightside
We're wary of such a large discrepancy in promise vs. delivery. Such overhyped promises set a level of expectation that, quite frankly, Brightside fails to meet. All of this makes Brightside Health a not-so-bright option for your mental health journey.
More Online Therapy Reviews
The 10 Best Online Therapy Services
Where Can You Find the Best Online Therapy?
Have you been feeling down lately? A little stressed out? Do you feel like you want someone to talk to but you're limited by your local options? Or maybe you just don't have time for extra driving in your busy schedule? No matter what your therapy needs, if you feel like you need help, you deserve it.
Whether you're a long-time therapy patient, or you're looking to turn over a new leaf with your mental health, there are tons of online options to make your therapy journey easier. But where can you get started? There are so many online therapy choices and so many different therapy styles that it can be hard to choose which way to turn.
Online Therapy FAQ
Continued from above...
Telehealth and online therapy have become popular options. Nearly four in ten Americans (38%) have used telehealth services to meet with a medical or mental health professional, up from 31% in previous years. The majority of those who use telehealth or online therapy now started after the pandemic. Most patients are using telehealth through a video format (69%), while 38% have used phone calls only.
While many originally believed that telehealth and online therapy were lower-quality services compared to in-person treatment, the opinion on telehealth has increased by 40% since 2021. The National Center for Health Research found that online therapy is effective for treating trauma, anxiety, and depression. So, no matter what you need from your online session, you can be assured that you're getting the same treatment as an in-person session.
So, how do you choose the best online therapy provider for your needs? There are a lot of factors to consider. If you're not sure where to start your journey, here are a few things to help you decide:
- Price: How much does a single session cost? Are there any additional fees?
- Scheduling: Do you need an hour-long session or something shorter? Do you need a telehealth provider with flexible times for a changing schedule?
- Style: Are you looking for a particular style of therapy? Do you want something solo or something for couples?
- Therapist: Do you need a degree-holding psychiatrist for prescriptions, or do you want a more casual therapist to talk things over? Do you want someone who's studied particular theories like music therapy or a more generalized approach?
- Modality options: Do you only want online sessions, or are you looking for something where you can also have in-person sessions?
To help you find the right kind of online therapy for you, Top Consumer Reviews has evaluated and ranked today's most popular providers across the US. We hope these will make it easy to start prioritizing your mental health in the best way for your needs.
Compare Online Therapy Services
Select any 2 Online Therapy Services to compare them head to head
Trending Online Therapy News
Related Online Therapy Reviews
Since you're interested in Online Therapy Services, here are some other reviews you might find interesting.
Newest Reviews
