Talkspace Employee Reviews for Therapist

I have been working as a therapist for Talkspace since August. I am expected to be available five days a week, despite this not being my full-time job. Also, if a new client books an appointment with you on a weekend or at off hours, you will get a text. And then if you don’t get back to them within eight hours (because you’re not working), you’ll get another text telling you the client has been waiting and to make an introduction ASAP. This just happened to me at 2:30 this morning. That is unacceptable on all fronts. Further, your clients, whether they’ve met with you or not, are encouraged to give you a 1-5 star rating. I’d received several one-star ratings from people I’d never even met with! Finally, their policies regarding potentially suicidal patients is murky at best. As I was reviewing a new client’s information prior to meeting with them they indicated that they had planned suicide within the past 30 days. Nowhere could I find company policy on how to handle this type of situation before meeting with the client for the first time, so I ultimately handled the case per my state’s licensing board and association’s code of ethics. Very unhelpful. I’m seriously reconsidering my future employment there.

Pros

Flexible work hours, good client caseload for the most part

Cons

See above!

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Associate therapist - 1099 role

1099 Contractor - Associate Therapist (Current Employee) - Work from home - October 27, 2023

Talkspace has been a great "side gig" for me. I am an associate therapist and they pay decently compared to other practices in my state. I am able to determine my schedule and how many clients I would like to take. You are not going to find that elsewhere! I enjoy the flexibility of telehealth. One thing that can be a tad stressful is managing the messaging therapy. You are expected to respond one time a day for five days. The best advice is to set aside specific times in your day to go through your messages. I was hesitant to start with this company because some of the reviews are not the best, but I have to disagree with a lot of the negative reviews. I have been assigned some amazing clients that are 100% appropriate for telehealth. The EMR is very simple to use and they are consistently finding ways to make the platform better. They are always asking for therapist feedback. Yes, they do ask clients to rate you on 1-5. I have not had an issue with my ratings, however, there is not a lot of emphasis on these ratings. You can really ignore it if you choose. As a 1099 you are in control and there is no upper management. If you are a fully licensed clinician, you definitely can get paid higher elsewhere, but for associate therapists working towards licensure, this is a great platform.

Pros

Flexibility, work from home, no micro-managing, decent reimbursement for associate level counselors

Cons

Messaging can be tricky sometimes

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Talkspace insights

Based on 135 survey responses

What people like

Clear sense of purpose
Time and location flexibility

Areas for improvement

Fair pay for job
Sense of belonging
Support from manager

Flexible workplace

Therapist (Current Employee) - Remote - September 18, 2023

Flexible with good benefits. Questionable expectations. They work on getting you licensed in multiple states but as you build caseload still required to meet expectations.

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Long hours, not worth the dismal pay, and terrible customer service

Therapist (Former Employee) - Remote - September 15, 2023

Provider services is not helpful at all, be prepared for your pay to not be the same as how much you worked due to their system using wrong CPT codes. Match you with clients that are sometimes more acute than what is expected for telehealth, as well client's that don't match professional niche. "Messaging therapy" is questionable and time consuming for little pay.

Pros

set your own schedule

Cons

lack of support, provider and client customer service dismal

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Had a Lot of Potential But Went Downhill

Therapist (Former Employee) - Florida - September 12, 2023

The W2 therapist program was a really great idea at its conception but quickly went off the rails when the original owners of the company left and the company went public. After that there was a constant changing of expectations, caseloads, management and programs with a good majority of therapists and team leads being let go.

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Great place to work, severely underpaid

Therapist (Current Employee) - United States - August 30, 2023

I have long-term clients, and I feel undervalued due to my low pay. Good stream of clients. Severely underpaid. Pay structure is terrible. In charge of my own scheduling.

Pros

steady stream of clients

Cons

changed pay structure

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Productive

Therapist (Current Employee) - Remote - August 20, 2023

Good flow of clients but pay not great. Independent therapist not a lot of guidance. Can make your own schedule which is great. Still fairly new at the company.

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good side job

Therapist (Current Employee) - remote - July 24, 2023

great client referrals and a good side gig for those wanting to make some extra money. I found that I was getting a consistent steady stream of clients

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Talkspace has little regard for therapists and clients

Therapist (Current Employee) - Remote - July 12, 2023

As a current therapist I can say that Talkspace is concerned with their bottom line only. They don’t show concern for clients and offer little support to therapists. For example their previous bonus structure for therapists depended on how long a therapist continues working with the same clients. In order to decrease therapists’ bonuses, when a client updated payment info the client was taken away from their therapist and assigned a new one. This was done to interrupt continuity so therapists wouldn’t receive a bonus for said client. Talkspace did not care that this was disruptive to the client’s therapy. The new bonus structure affected my income by thousands. The new structure is based on time spent with clients, except now Talkspace limits the time we can spend with clients. Talkspace doesn’t adhere to best practices and doesn’t treat therapists or clients well. Btw, the bonuses don’t begin to make up for how underpaid therapists are on this platform, especially for messaging sessions.

Pros

Flexible schedule, remote work

Cons

Poor support, unethical

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TalkSpace has been wonderful! Great flexibility and compensation.

Independent Contract Therapist (Current Employee) - Remote - June 19, 2023

TalkSpace has been way better than I ever expected! As a contractor you are in complete control. It’s easy and fast to get new referrals. You are 100% in charge of your schedule and workload. Notes are simple and fast. They ask for feedback pretty regularly and I’ve seen them make the changes I’ve requested. Pay is excellent. Definitely more than full time jobs pay hourly.

Pros

Excellent flexibility and control of work schedule and work load. Good pay.

Cons

New bonus structure punishes taking vacation.

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Jobs at Talkspace

Therapist positions

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Part-Time Therapist (Remote)

New Orleans, LA

30+ days ago

Part-Time Therapist (Remote)

Detroit, MI

30+ days ago

Part-Time Therapist (Remote)

Wilmington, DE

30+ days ago

Part-Time Therapist (Remote)

Jackson, MS

30+ days ago

Part-Time Therapist (Remote)

Nashville, TN

30+ days ago

So So

Therapist (Current Employee) - Maryland - May 24, 2023

Talkspace was great during the pandemic and provided services to many who otherwise wouldn't have had it. Outside of the pandemic it hasn't been so great. Frequent changes with insurance credentialing has often left clients without service. Changes in bonus structure reduced my pay by thousands. There is no number to call for providers or customers, only email, and a response takes several days or more. It can be good for getting more clients quickly, but pay is low especially for messaging sessions.

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Numerous payment/billing errors with little support

Therapist (Current Employee) - Utah - May 20, 2023

The pay is better than some places but less than others. However, when I started reviewing recent payments with actual sessions, I began noticing small but significant discrepancies to where their system was not paying me correctly. It has been a tedious process to get this corrected and the issue appears to be ongoing. They also provide only minimal support to their therapist providers. Therefore, the pay/compensation is significantly less than advertised.

Pros

Flexible schedule.

Cons

Numerous payment errors and inadequate support to providers in correcting their them.

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Therapists are not AI chat bots.

Therapist (Current Employee) - Remote - May 20, 2023

I just received my first "pay check" as a 1099 therapist. I don't even think my first "pay check" would be minimum wage in my state. Based on the fact there is almost zero support for onboarding, the time it takes a therapist to figure out where to find various tools and resources, and the actual time it takes to provide individualized care and document those interactions, there is NO WAY the pay even approaches minimum wage in my state. The other big issue I've had is there hasn't been a single interaction with a human from the company. They just push you through onboarding videos. Talkspace doesn't seem to offer much in the way of support, but yet they are constantly monitoring you with metrics on timeliness of response and such. They give therapists "motivational" information like "You're rating is at the bottom 30th percentile of providers." The customer rating system constantly prods customers to rate therapy. But customers are over promised constant access to a therapist, of course they're unimpressed when they buy the service! I've had to set boundaries and temper client expectations of what the service is and isn't. Counselors are human persons; we're not AI chat bots. Don't treat us as such, Talkspace!

Pros

Flexible hours

Cons

Pay, onboarding, therapist support, metrics, dishonest marketing ploys

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Shocked by the negative reviews - Best place to work for me

National Practice Therapist (Current Employee) - counselor - April 29, 2023

I was baffled when reading the reviews. I work and get a salary and I make my own hours. I always get paid on time and I have fun at the community events. I met 2 close therapist here and we became good friends. I meet more people when I go to the functions. My teamlead always helps. The biggest concern is sometimes the clients send long messages and you have to respond but it helps me with the 30 hours. I quit my other job because they wanted me to see 85 patients and they did not have a no show policy.

Pros

Friends and flexibility I have a sick sister and 3 yound kiddos.

Cons

paitents send long messages

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Too many changes

Therapist (Former Employee) - Nevada - April 25, 2023

Used to be a great place to work, but too many changes to pay structure and management has made it unbearable. Unable to meet weekly targets and overworked for little pay.

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Do Not Work Here

National Practice Provider Therapist (Current Employee) - California - April 17, 2023

Cons: High case loads of 60 patients or more. Expectations of 30 billable hours with 30 minutes sessions or 10 minutes texting or audio. They are not about quality or patient care. Toxic positivity culture. Your overwhelmed from your First Day. They do not promote a work life balance for clinicians. Save yourself the headache do not sign up to work here. Run for your life.

Pros

None. Not Worth the Salary

Cons

No time to Breathe

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About the money

Remote therapist (Former Employee) - Remote - April 5, 2023

The company seemed very image and money focused. Pay was below average for the same role in other companies. They would have lower turnover if they offered more to grad level clinicians.

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Low pay for the work

Therapist (Current Employee) - remote - February 20, 2023

Talkspace is great for the flexibility and immediate client however for the time and energy you put in, the pay is not worth it to be full time. It is okay as a side job.

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Abysmal pay

Therapist (Current Employee) - Remote - February 17, 2023

At first I really liked working for Talkspace. The training was really good and prepared you to be confident with patients and on the platform, but it quickly became clear that they didn't really care about their therapists. They just wanted us to go through the motions with patients so that the patient would stick around longer and keep paying. The compensation is abysmal for a masters level therapist with years of experience and they don't seem to care. It's clearly disrespectful and I ended up growing resentful of all the hours I was putting in crafting quality responses and treatment to patients and not getting compensated well for it. I calculated the time I was spending with patients and the pay and it ended up being just over $15 per hour. Absolutely unacceptable. Now they have content minimums and if a patient stops engaging, you don't get paid. Management and support staff changed rapidly, and it quickly became a shell of a company from when I started working there. DEI became a primary concern so those of us who fell outside of that started to be neglected. Patients came into a counseling room with unrealistic expectations of "unlimited" therapy due to unethical marketing by the company (what they really mean is that the patient has unlimited access to the room, not unlimited therapy). I'm still there, but I only rarely see patients. I will meet with a patient or two occasionally b/c they offer a bonus when the platform gets really busy so that bumps up the compensation so when I want to put a little in savings (the operative word there is LITTLE) I will -

Pros

Flexibility

Cons

Abysmal pay, poor support, neglected therapists, unethical marketing practices and platform management

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Initially a great concept but promotes burnout

Therapist (Former Employee) - Georgia - February 16, 2023

I enjoyed working for Talkspace initially but then realized the company promotes burnout by taking on too many clients. Also, the pay should be more frequent such as biweekly instead of monthly. I’d go back if the pay was more frequent.

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Low paid work

Independent Contract Therapist (Current Employee) - Remote - January 29, 2023

Low-paid work. Flexibility with the schedule. Challenges with communication from the helpdesk. Can work with clients from around the world. Overall, I would avoid the company and start ones own practice

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