The Taproot Podcast - 🏢👿Corporate Tech Monopolies are Going to Ruin Therapy

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Read the article here: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/corporate-tech-monopolies-are-going-tto-ruin-therapy/   Last weekend BetterHelp, the online subscription therapy company, settled with the FTC for almost 8 million in fines for selling therapy patients confidential information to Facebook and Snapchat. This isn’t justice, so hold your applause.  The company, whose name really is the word better and help smashed together with no space between them has had issues before. A quick google search reveals customer reviews claiming the company is as good at therapy as it is at punctuation. The company previously faced controversy for allegedly paying youtube influencers to vlog about invented mental health conditions that they claimed the company's treatment had “cured”. Since these influencers have and audience of children and young adults who look up to them, these potential lies are especially worrisome. Some of these influencers purportedly received thousands of dollars in compensation for the alleged lies.  Real patients seeking a cure from better help have reported getting hit with recurring subscription fees, therapists that repeatedly no show and charge you anyway, as well as getting slammed with hours of paperwork that takes up all the allotted time. If true, this is a shady practice but not illegal.  So why is the sale of data such a big deal? Put simply it's a big deal because if I did it to one patient I would lose my license and potentially get sued. The FTC has just set a precedent that big companies can now do this to millions of people with impunity. Fines, like the 7.8 million that BetterHelp is returning to consumers is a cost of doing business for these companies. They take the risk because they make more money breaking the law than they pay in fines.  Because this would have put anyone else in court.  When you go to therapy there is more than just an expectation that what you talk about will be kept private. HIPPA laws mean that if your therapist knowingly discloses information about you they are breaking the law. You can sue them, their board can take their license, insurance panels can drop them and you can sue them civilly. This is if one therapist knowingly shares the data of a single patient.  Here it happened to millions of people. This was not an accident either. BetterHelp intentionally did this WHILE telling customers specifically that they would never do the thing that they were secretly doing.  BetterHelp removed all of the links I posted to these news articles from their social media in an effort to not have to be associated with their own behavior. That is strange since BetterHelp also claims that they did nothing wrong in their statement about the settlement.  “This settlement, which is no admission of wrongdoing, allows us to continue to focus on our mission". You read that right. Either BetterHelp misspelled “I’m sorry” or they really think they did nothing wrong. Let's hope they are as bad at spelling as punctuation. People with antisocial personality disorder have no regard for right and wrong despite getting caught and experiencing consequences. People with this disorder need therapy but here a possible inference is that they appear to be providing it.   BetterHelp also goes on to say in their statement that all the information sold to Facebook was encrypted and non identifiable despite the fact that they released the emails of users. My email address, [e-mail], is pretty effective at letting someone identify who I am.  Betterhelp released emails of users. If they are using betterhelp, they are seeking mental health treatment. They also released information regarding prior mental health treatment. According to the complaint: Some of the intake questions that BetterHelp sold to facebook identified whether patients had been in therapy before. Below is from the official complaint: “For example, though an affirmative response to the question “Have you been in counseling or therapy before?” was coded as “AddToWishlist,” the analyst revealed to Facebook that this event meant that the “user completes questionnaire marking they have been in therapy before, thereby disclosing millions of Visitors’ and Users’ prior therapy to Facebook.” BetterHelp claims this is not protected information because it didn't come from actual sessions, just the intake to an app that gets you therapy. This is absurd. I am not allowed to tell you who comes into my waiting room or who emails me about therapy because it is readily apparent that those people are trying to receive healthcare.  While the legal burden of responsibility lies with the seller, the buyer bears some ethical responsibility in my mind. Facebook and Snapchat knew what the data was they were buying. If you knowingly buy stolen goods you are culpable. If you get caught stealing you get a punishment in addition to having to give back what you stole. Here the FTC has merely made BetterHelp return the ill gotten gains but there are no consequences. There is no punishment that any single other therapist would face.  THEN BetterHelp released a statement saying they didn't do anything wrong. Is that justice? These corporate monopolies are ruining therapy and it is not talked about enough. The parent company of BetterHelp is another giant monopoly, Teladoc. Even if this gets publicized, even if CNN and Fox News deign to care about potentially criminal invasions of privacy, the parent company can just dissolved the brand and use the same practices under the larger corporate umbrella. This is increasingly worrisome as insurance companies are making moves to make Teladoc the mandatory go between software for patients to receive teletherapy.  As a patient, as a provider, as a legislator, refuse to participate in these things. They are a bad precedent taking the industry into a bad place.   Anyone who wants to say that this is wrong and condemn these practices has to make the intellectual leap that the only way to make it stop is to force these companies to face legal consequences. Not fines. Fines are baked into the cost of doing business. If you say you care about this then you have to accept that the only way to stop these companies is to break them up and send people to prison. Companies like this can make more money breaking the law than they have to pay back. Executives who signed off on this deserve jail time and these companies need to be taken apart. Let's see how frequently this happens when people start looking at prison time.  Many podcasters pretend to be allies for mental health yet shill for these companies. If you listen to an influencer who shills for BetterHelp it is your responsibility to hold them accountable. I am not making this post to condemn BetterHelp therapists. I know some who are good people and talented. I do not believe these practices are their fault. Noone becomes a social worker to get rich and finding ethical employment is a luxury that comes secondary to paying your mortgage. Good therapists work there; it drives the better people further away from competitors. Responsibility lies with the people with power not those subject to its whims. Although, you should know if you work for BetterHelp that your contract makes you personally liable for patient outcomes, even outcomes caused by following company policies.  I’ve been careful to limit my own liability in this article and without going through any more specifics, if you are a patient or a provider I am happy to guide you through how to succeed in this industry. The vast majority of people who contact Taproot Therapy Collective receive a high quality personalized referral to another local provider.  We genuinely want you to get therapy at the best place for you. We recognize that we are not the right provider for every need. We treat the therapists in our collective well even though we could make more money if we didn’t.  We call every person who contacts us back even when we are full. We don’t do that because it makes us money. We do it because providers of mental health services have a responsibility to ethical behavior even when our legislators have decided there won’t be legal consequences if we don’t.  Choosing ethical behavior is not something that should be up to the clinician. Our legislators should enforce existing laws even if it means sending their campaign donors to jail. We are in a mental health crisis and practices like these give people valid reasons to be afraid of getting mental health care.  Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.com/ Check out the youtube: https://youtube.com/@GetTherapyBirminghamPodcast Website: https://gettherapybirmingham.podbean.com/ Podcast Feed: https://feed.podbean.com/GetTherapyBirmingham/feed.xml Taproot Therapy Collective 2025 Shady Crest Drive | Hoover, Alabama 35216 Phone: [phone] Fax: [phone] Email: [e-mail] The resources, videos and podcasts on our site and social media are no substitute for mental health treatment. Please find a qualified mental health provider and contact emergency services in your area in the event of an emergency to a provider in your area. Our number and email are only for scheduling at Taproot Therapy Collective are not monitored consistently and not a reliable resource for emergency services.

Hi, this is Joel Blackstock with the Tablet Therapy Collective podcast, and today we're going to talk about corporate tech monopolies ruining therapy. So last weekend, BetterHelp, which is an online subscription therapy company, settled with the Federal Trade Commission for almost $8 million in fines, which will be returned to consumers for selling therapy patients data that is confidential. And they sold the data to Facebook and Snapchat. And this isn't justice, so please hold your applause there. And this company, whose name really is the word better of people who have had a negative experience with the company. last year where YouTube influencers that a lot of like Gen Z children and young adults watch were paid without disclosing it to vlog about conditions that they had. And the allegation was

that the conditions, the mental health conditions that they were, the influencers were saying that they had were made up or exaggerated, and they claimed that BetterHelp had treated the conditions. And a lot of YouTube influencers talked about it. And, you know, children look up to that community, so it's kind of an abuse of power there. Maybe it's a little shady marketing, but it's not illegal. Whereas this new thing is not getting the attention that I think it needs to get because it's not just illegal. It's a huge deal.

If I had done this as a therapist, if any one therapist did this, there would be giant consequences that when a company that makes millions of dollars did this to millions of patients, nothing happened. Nothing happened to them. So, you know, one of the allegations that has gone on for a really long time with BetterHelp is that they say that they're going to charge you for one session, but it's really hidden in the fine print that it's a subscription and that it's $320 a month. A lot of people have complained that there are repeated no-shows where the therapist doesn't show up, which happens. I mean, it may happen to you at Taproot, but it seems to be a big problem and that they charge you anyway, even

though the therapist cancels the session or that they give you paperwork that takes up the whole hour. So you never even really get to meet with the therapist. Those are some complaints that are around. I mean, you may encounter that at any big company, but this thing about selling data to Facebook is unprecedented for a couple reasons, and I just think people should know about it because it's a big deal. You know, this sale of data, you know, the FTC is saying that they have to give this money back to people that was ill-gotten. That's not a punishment. Okay. Like these companies have fines baked in to their business structure, or they make more money breaking the law than they have to pay back when they get caught. So it's not a punishment. It does. It's not a deterrent. You know, there's no, their risk tolerance, this is all factored into it. And unless you start to have real consequences for these companies, then we are going to turn this profession into something that people stay away from because they are afraid. And people need mental health care. People kill themselves. People get addicted to opiates. Fentanyl is rising. Like, we need to be making healthcare something that people trust.

And these companies are making healthcare something that people are afraid of as a matter of, you know, just perception. I mean, the perception is real there. But, you know, people aren't just going to just trust this one company. They're going to read these things, and they're going to see what happens, and they're not going to go to therapy at all. And that's a pretty big consequence. So, you know, when you go to therapy, there's more than just this expectation that what you talk about will be private. You know, HIPAA laws, the healthcare protection laws mean that, you know, your therapist, if they knowingly disclose information

about you, they're breaking the law or anything that you say. You know, there's a couple of exceptions to that. If you're suicidal or homicidal actively, or if you're making or accessing child pornography, you know, we're mandated reporters of that. But other than that, I mean, that relationship is sacrosanct. And, you know, if one therapist had done this, they would be civilly liable to be sued. They would lose their license, probably, if they did it intentionally or repeatedly, and they would be kicked out of an insurance panel. And this company had none of those things happen. They were just like, okay, you took some money, so what do you give a little bit of it back? If I rob a bank, and they tell me, yeah, just give the money back to the bank, but we're not going to do anything

else, what does that teach me? And, you know, and then the thing that is beyond the pale to me is that after they did this, they released a statement saying we didn't do anything wrong, which tells you what they are going to continue to do. Okay. You know, Better Help removed all of the links that I put on their news articles because they don't want to be associated with their own behavior. I tagged them in a couple articles. Just the articles that were saying their own press release. They were saying this happened. Well, they didn't want that on their social media because they don't want to be associated with their own behavior. And that's strange because they released a statement that said, this settlement, which is

no admission of wrongdoing, allows us to continue to focus on our mission. That's why we settled with the FTC. They didn't do anything wrong. And that's either a really weird way to misspell, I'm sorry, or they don't think they did anything wrong. And they're telling you that. And it's not just this one company. I mean, the reason that I wanted to put this out there is because people need to understand how grave of a risk this is to the profession. You know, like, I know therapists that work for BetterHelp that are good people, and they're good therapists. And it's not their fault. They're not in control of these things. Ethical employment is a luxury, okay?

Like, social workers and LPCs, like like don't make a ton of money. And if you have to pick between working from somebody that's for somebody who's kind of icky and paying your mortgage or feeding your kids, you're going to work for somebody who's kind of icky. I would do it, too. So it's not that people who work for better help are bad. That's not the point. That's that if these things are allowed to happen as precedent, then this industry is something that people will no longer

trust and no longer use. And they shouldn't, right? I mean, one of the things that BetterHelp said in their statement was that, you know, they didn't disclose anything that was identifiable or anything that wasn't encrypted to Facebook, all right? Well, one of the things that they released purportedly is email addresses. My email address is joelblackstock at gettherapybirmingham.com. That's pretty identifiable. If you see that, you know who I am and where I work. I mean, most people's email address is public because it's an email address and we want to get email. If nobody knows what it is, then they can't email you, you know? And so another thing that they did when they released all this stuff is you know they took

the intake question that said have you ever been in therapy before which is you're going to get a history if you go to see a therapist the therapist wants to know if you're going to be in therapy before that's part of an intake question and they're like well that doesn't count because that was just part of the app that you could use for self-help but that you later use for therapy it was an intake question on there so it's not really part of the app that you could use for self-help, but that you later used for therapy. It was an intake question on there. So, it's not really part of your therapy with your therapist. You know, what the hell?

If I took pictures of the people in my waiting room, or I had a live stream of people walking into therapy. And I was like, well, you don't know what happened in the room, so you don't know that they're getting therapy. I mean, anyone can make the connection that somebody who is saying, who's going to a therapy app to get therapy is wanting to get therapy and also when you're you're asking them within a health care setting have you been in therapy before which is privileged information you didn't ask them you know on the street you ask them in the context of trying to pair them with a therapist and get a history so that that is health care information which this company is saying isn't which should really make you afraid of these apps it's not just better help you know a lot of these companies do the same thing consumer reports had a really good article where they and they did a study they actually did some reporting where they looked at what these companies, and they did six different companies, where they were sending

data to, and they're all sending data to Facebook, okay? So, and Facebook, in my mind, bears some responsibility. There are laws that should be in place. I mean, the law says, you know, that they're better help, the responsibility is on them to keep this stuff private, but you know what you're buying. Like they, they understood the data that they were buying. Like, so this is from the FTC's complaint. This is from the actual document. They said that there was a question called, have you ever been in counseling or therapy before? And the analyst revealed to Facebook that this event meant that the user completes the questionnaire marking that they have been in therapy before. The therapy

thereby disclosing millions of visitors and users prior therapy to Facebook. Okay. So it's better help's fault because they're the healthcare provider. But Facebook knows that they're buying a medical history, right? If you fence stolen goods, if you know you're buying stolen goods, then I think you have some ethical responsibility there, too. And no one's talking about that. And then after they did that, BetterHelp released a statement saying we didn't do anything wrong. There's even like a little part at the end where they're like, we understand that the FTC is trying to create a new precedent.

It's like this isn't anything to do with the Federal Trade Commission. You broke the law and you had to give back some of the money. This should be the Justice Department, in my opinion. So, I mean, I think that these corporate monopolies have the potential to ruin therapy because they're going to get so big that you have to use them. The parent company of BetterHelp is Teladoc. And if the brand gets toxic, I mean, even if CNN and Fox News deign to care about all this potentially or allegedly criminal stuff and report it, the brand could just get so toxic that they dissolve it and then they continue to do the same service under a different name or under Teladoc. And a lot of insurance companies are starting to require therapists to use Teladoc. I want to use Simple Practice because I know what they do with their data.

And I know the history of that company. And when we put my company together, when we put our collective together, we looked at that because we cared about the people who came to see us. And if you don't give the providers a choice, then they have to use these services because people have insurance and they're required to use Teladoc. I don't know what Teladoc does with the data. I'm not accusing them of anything, even though BetterHelp is, they own it, you know, so they're kind of responsible for that.

But I don't want to say anything that's going to get me in legal trouble, but I don't want to use that company. And if the insurance company tells me that I have to do it, I have the choice of not taking insurance or using their software. And I think that those monopolies are bad. And I want the consumer to know about it, and I want the providers to know about it. And companies like this make more money breaking the law than they have to pay back when they get caught. That is a bad precedent. You know, if you send executives who do this to jail, they will stop because they don't want to go to jail if there's personal liability when you break the law. And the thing that makes me frustrated is there would be

personal liability if it was me. If I did this, somebody wouldn't say, okay, just refund some co-pays. I would get kicked out of a Blue Cross panel. A lot of things would happen. So I think it is our responsibility to hold these companies accountable. And that doesn't mean that all the people who work there are bad. And that doesn't mean that, you know, there's, it doesn't mean that you have to like go out and blast them on Facebook. I don't really think that's effective. But it just means that you have to recognize that this is a big deal and be vocal about who you use as a provider. Because when the healthcare is under the control of a monopoly, then everyone who's providing or receiving

healthcare doesn't have a choice anymore. And these corporate tech monopolies scare me as a therapist. So I've been very careful to limit my own liability and like what I'm saying, because I, a lot of these things are alleged or, you know, I wasn't the one who has the data. I'm reading the news too and trusting that to be true. So, you know, I have every reason to believe that this is what I'm saying is right, but you know but there's a margin of error in that I don't have all the information. I don't have the data that they sent to Facebook. But at Taproot, we receive a high quality of, or we try and provide a high quality of privacy for you. And we also personalize every referral that we get. I mean, we want to take care of you. We don't want you to just come here. We want you to get therapy, even if it's not with us. And we recognize that

we're not the best provider for every person. And so even though we have a month waitlist, a lot of the time or a couple month waitlist, we return every call, even when we're full. And we try and get you with somebody who's accepting patients, which means we have a short list of people who are accepting patients. And sometimes when the industry is underwater, that's really hard. And we still do it because I have a higher loyalty to the ethics of this profession. And I would like for those to be legally enforced. But if our legislators are failing to do that, then I will still do it. But I think that you shouldn't have the choice. I don't think that you should just have to obey the ethics because you decided to.

I think that you should have to obey the ethics because if you don't, you broke the law and there's a consequence that did not happen here. This is Joel. If you have a question, please send me an email and check out our website, GetTherapyBirmingham.com.