Clay: Hello and welcome to episode 12 of the Online Counselling Podcast. My name is Clay Cockrell. I’m your host. It’s always funny to think of but I am. I’m your host. This is where we go behind the scenes and talk to therapists who have taken their practice online via video and audio connections. From the very beginning when I was just thinking about starting this podcast, my goal was to bring not only personal stories of those who are doing it so we can learn from them, but also to bring valuable information from experts on the ins and outs of online counseling – the license issues, the tech issues, the HIPAA compliant issues, information that I think is really needed as our field changes with the technology and in today’s episode, we do just that. It’s the mother load.
If you’ve done any exploration on issues related to online counseling, the name Roy Huggins is going to come to the top of the list. He is one of the leading voices in this area and bringing years of experience to the table in regards to HIPAA compliance, platforms that you can use, license issues, security issues, ethics. That’s just a partial list of his expertise. I’m so excited that I got Roy to do this podcast and we only touch on some of these issues, but I think we were able to talk about some of the main concerns out there. Yes, we talked about Skype and their HIPAA issues. Business associate agreement is a term you’ve probably heard bandit about. We talked about license issues and going across state lines, all things that I hear when I talk to therapists who are thinking about going online with their practice. To be able to sit down with an expert in the field and talk about the concerns that people are bringing to the table was incredibly valuable.
Roy is definitely someone you need to know and after listening to his interview, head on over to his site for more in depth exploration of these issues. This is what this man loves. He’s good at it. He has valuable information and he’s there to help as this industry changes. I hope you enjoy the podcast.
Hello and welcome to the Online Counselling Podcast. I am really excited today to welcome to the show Roy Huggins. Roy, welcome.
Roy: Thanks, Clay. Good to be here.
Clay: Great. One of the reasons I started this podcast was I wanted to be able to bring information, education to therapists out there who are thinking about doing online counseling and want to do it correctly. In all my research, you are if not the leading voice out there on helping people do this correctly and make sure they are following HIPAA and keeping themselves and their clients in a safe place. I’m really excited that you’re here.
Roy: Awesome, thanks.
Clay: You’re a licensed professional counselor but you are also a consultant to therapists who are working online. Tell us a little bit about you and how you got started in all of this.
Roy: Oh sure, yeah. Before the counselor like out of college, I ended up being a web developer in 1999, 2000 when I was a little hot and like many people who did that at that time, it was actually not the right calling for me kind of intrapersonally to do that but I was good at it. So you get stuck in it, right? I’m sure we all know that story. So I was doing that for a good seven years and I also grew up as a techy and I was using BBSes before the worldwide web came around, that kind of thing. Yes, it’s kind of funny to me. It’s like all you need is computer and a modem, but it was just kind of how I like doing things. I’ve decided to go into counseling and then I did, of course. I finished grad school. I went abroad for a few years.
I come back, it’s 2010 and colleagues start telling me, and this was really weird to me in 2010. It’s kind of funny. They are saying to me like, “Oh, we need websites. You have to have a website. Without a website, you won’t get clients.” It was funny. Understand that that was my career was building websites or developing the back ends of websites. Despite that fact, to me, this seemed like the most ridiculous idea ever. I was like, “Of course you want to have a website. Of course, you need to have a web presence so that people see you there.” You’re present, but I was like, “There’s no way people are going to do a Google search to find a therapist,” and that’s how they find a therapist. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard was that I was like saying at that time, right? They are like, “No, it’s true.” That’s how I kind of got started doing the tech consulting as I initially started helping people build their website.
Clay: Oh, okay.
Roy: After that, no, I just answered that. I mean, then it sort of moved into – it’s kind of a longer story but essentially then, it’s like, I had a client who because of her particular anxieties really needed to use texting to communicate important material to me and so I, of course, know enough about computer networks to know that there’s confidentiality issues with that. I decided I need to find out if this is like ethical or legal to do this and that’s when I started studying HIPAA. It sort of snowballed from there.
Clay: Okay. You’ve been there at the beginning of the worldwide web, combined two different worlds here. What are your thoughts on HIPAA and what some therapists need to be considering when they are thinking, “Okay, I want to start online counseling, web conferencing.” What should we be considering?
Roy: You know it’s funny as you bring HIPAA and that is my big specialty. I mean, I do all the tech, but that’s my main area where I’m unique, right? It’s not just HIPAA. HIPAA is just sort of a code word for security. It’s like HIPAA of course is a law that says you have to do it, but honestly in this day and age, if we didn’t have HIPAA, ethical requirements will tell us to do all the same things. It might be a little simpler but you have to do all these things, right? Of course I would have a far harder time convincing people to do so if there wasn’t a law that says you have to. When people complain about HIPAA, you say, “Hey, it’s not the worst thing ever.”
What’s funny though is with online therapy, that’s not actually the first thing I think about is HIPAA. I mean, I’ve been doing online therapy now since about 2011, so for almost five years. To me the biggest issue that came up was just video quality. Security is an issue, of course, especially depending on your clients, like client based and what they are like and what kind of issues they are dealing with. Security may or may not be a big concern for them. Now, I know that there are probably ethicists out there or ethics board people who are kind of rolling around and going, “Oh Roy, why are you saying that?” because security is always a big issue, but to the client for some of them, you could be using the megaphones in a public square and won’t necessarily cared, to be honest, if the video quality sucks, how are you going to do good therapy?
I remember with I started using Skype like many of us before 2013 when the HIPAA rules changed and Skype became absolutely not usable at all, but the thing is, I don’t think those were usable before then. I was using Skype and like I’ll be talking to a client and just for some reason, the way our Skype is connected to each other, his face was always like red and purple on the screen. I always thought he was upset, right? I had a client who was starting to cry and I couldn’t see her tears because the way the video was rendering, and I totally botched the intervention. It was bad. It was a bad scene. I was really embarrassed, super embarrassed that I didn’t notice that. That was a lot because Skype just doesn’t do a very good job of ensuring that you have good video. It’s not the only software that’s like that. Making sure the software is able to not just deliver good video and audio but consistently do so without dropping your call, I think, is probably the first thing you want to be worrying about.
Clay: Yeah because if the software, the technology is getting in the way and preventing you from being an effective therapist, yeah, that would be the first thing to consider.
Roy: Yeah, absolutely.
Clay: Okay, go ahead.
Roy: Well, I was just agreeing with you. True enough, you and I are using Skype right now and funny enough, you are coming through choppy, right? So like it’s surprise surprise. I’m not a big fan of Skype.
Clay: Here’s the point that you’re trying to make. Okay, very good.
Roy: Exactly. There we go, right. And then we get to that, so then we get to the next stage which is, okay, what do you use? How do you go about meeting all your needs, which is clinical needs, ethical needs, and regulatory needs like HIPAA? What do you use for that? When you really start to dive into that, it becomes apparent very quickly is there’s a very strong difference between software that’s meant to be use by the general public just to connect like we’re doing right now with Skype and software that’s actually meant to be used for this purpose of clinical purposes.
It’s not just security, it’s not just HIPAA, and that’s one of many pieces, like a lot of the other pieces, the software designers know that their calls can’t cut out. Their software has to do its very best to prevent dropped calls. It has to make sure that the video quality doesn’t hide the client’s tears or make them look angry. They know that and so they design the software to be able to handle those things. Because they are designing it for those things, they are doing so because they know they are designing software for healthcare and so of course that means they also throw in all those things like HIPAA issues and things like that.
Clay: I have to tell you, Roy, there are sometimes, I talk to you and every time I walk away from, I’d never thought of it in that way. This is a tool, just like a surgeon would need to have a scalpel that’s going to do the exact thing that he needs the scalpel to do, we, as healthcare providers, need to have tools that are going to enable us and not get in the way.
Roy: Absolutely.
Clay: Originally in this conversation, I’m thinking I want to talk about Skype and whatever this business agreement thing, but we’re going in completely different topics, really important stuff. It has to be a tool that’s going to work. Okay, let’s talk a little bit about the security issue with Skype because a lot of people are still using Skype as their primary way to….
Roy: Stop it.
Clay: Yeah, talk to me about that.
Roy: Okay, so security with Skype. Honestly, it’s a funny thing because like this is one of those bits where, like, how do I get the short version in and yet communicate the full depth of meaning? Essentially, Skype is actually a semi-secure thing. Skype, you and I, the call that we’re doing right now as it goes over the internet, it is encrypted. It is, right? Someone says Skype is not encrypted. That’s just not true. They just don’t know what they are talking about. The problem is that just because it’s encrypted, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s secure all the time.
For example, my chest full of goodies is locked, but if the bad guy has the key, it doesn’t matter that it’s locked, right? The call is encrypted but Skype has a key, and they have to have the key because the Patriot Act and various other national laws require them to have the key because Skype’s offer can be used to call a normal telephone. Basically, Skype ends up being part of the telephone system. In the US, in Canada, France, a bunch of other places in Europe, all kinds of places all over the globe, the laws are that if your company interacts with phones, you have to allow law enforcement to eavesdrop on the calls with a warrant.
Clay: Okay.
Roy: Basically, Skype has to be able to have the keys, which means Skype can listen to your calls. We know from research Skype is not routinely listening to calls. They are not doing so, but they can. If you’re thinking as a consumer, just someone using stuff, you probably don’t care and if you do care, you might want to consider the fact that a lot of what you’re doing on the internet is exactly like that where the company that’s providing you the service can see everything you’re exchanging. That’s just the way it is.
Even Gmail, we’ll use a lot of encryption for when it’s sending information around, but Google itself can still read all of that because Google has the keys. Skype is the same way. So, if I’m working with a client, right, yes, Skype [inaudible 13:19] does prevent random third parties from seeing our calls. That’s cool. That’s good, but they prevent themselves from doing it and here’s the ethics question. Forget HIPAA. Here is just the ethical question, is that appropriate? Is it just ethically appropriate that I’m using software with a company that provides the software can see the calls? It’s not. It’s not ethically appropriate. It’s also not appropriate under HIPAA.
The HIPAA actually addresses that directly. Our ethics code addresses it broadly, but they are supposed to. They are ethics. That’s what ethics is like, but HIPAA addresses it directly if a third party company is handling your protected health information, your confidential info on your behalf. They have to engage with you with this thing called a Business Associate Agreement. It’s a special kind of contract and if you don’t get that agreement with them then basically, it’s a HIPAA violation. Skype doesn’t do those agreements. Because Skype doesn’t do those agreements, it’s actually not possible to use it and be HIPAA compliant.
Clay: Okay.
Roy: Bottom line, you cannot be HIPAA compliant while using it. Never call a product HIPAA compliant. That’s very harmful. It’s a very harmful thing in our discourse, in our industry, calling products HIPAA compliant because it’s not a real thing and it ends up throwing people off really badly. I’ve seen a lot of bad outcomes because people use that term wrong.
Clay: Okay.
Roy: I could talk more about that if you’d like.
Clay: Yeah, I do. Touch on that a bit. When you say the product is not HIPAA compliant, what do you mean by that?
Roy: Yes. Well, HIPAA is a regulation and the regulation defines things that you have to do, right? If you do those things, you’re compliant with HIPAA. HIPAA does not define things that a product must do. It doesn’t. It just defines things that you have to do if you use a particular product. One of the things I have to do if I use Skype or anything else where a third party is handling my calls for me, which pretty much all the video software does, right? They all have to be involved somehow. If I’m doing that, one of the things I have to do is get that Business Associate Agreement with the company, right? That’s required for me to be HIPAA compliant. Nothing about what the software does is defining HIPAA other than the fact that I need the software to do certain things for me to be HIPAA compliant.
The reason this matters is because – I’ll tell people things like, because the problem is if people look at the product is compliant or not, what they are looking for is a seal of approval that allows the clinician to buy and forget because the problem is you’re depending on the products to be HIPAA compliant and figuring that by doing so, you yourself don’t have to do anything, which is actually the opposite of the truth. The truth is that you’re required to do things for HIPAA compliance. The product does not. The product just has to meet your needs for compliance. The thing is, for a long time, I just figured that argument was being pedantic. I figured like just telling people that, it was just me being pedantic, but then I kept seeing examples where people would get really messed up, really screwed over because they made that error.
If you get Google Apps for Work, which is a paid thing, it costs like $5 a month. It’s really cheap, right, but it’s a paid thing. It’s not free Gmail. It’s a whole other thing, but Google Apps for Work includes Google email, Google Drive, Google Documents, and Google Calendar. If you get that $5 a month version, they will give you the Business Associate Agreement, that agreement that you need, right? It is totally possible to use Google Apps for Work and be HIPAA compliant. That is really good news. This is awesome. A lot of people like this, right? I said this kind of thing in other podcasts, right, and then I find out later, somebody goes and buys the product and then starts using it in a certain way and then someone else tells them, “Oh, that thing you’re doing with that product is not HIPAA compliant.”
Clay: Okay.
Roy: And they say, “Well, Roy said that Google Apps for Work is HIPAA compliant.” What I’m getting at is like you can use it in a way that’s HIPAA compliant, but the product itself is not sort of wrapped in a safety seal of HIPAA compliance such that you can use it any way that you want and no matter how you use it, you’re fine with HIPAA, right? That’s an important distinction because they heard me say that the clinician could be compliant while using it, but then decided that what I said was the product itself is HIPAA compliant because that’s the discourse that we always here, right, is that products can be HIPAA compliant. By doing so, he ended up using it in a noncompliant way.
Clay: I see.
Roy: Does that make sense?
Clay: Absolutely. We are required as professionals to be compliant with this law and there are things out there that are going to help us or hinder us in being HIPAA compliant.
Roy: Precisely it. That’s right, that’s right. Often in the industry, the term people use is “this product is HIPAA secure or HIPAA friendly.” What they mean is like the way it secures things will meet your HIPAA needs or it gives you what you need to be compliant, like the Business Associate Agreement. That’s a more appropriate way of saying it.
Clay: Okay, alright and we don’t see Skype becoming that anytime soon, right?
Roy: No. There is a thing called Skype for Business but it’s just as terrible as normal Skype, so whatever. Skype for Business will do the Business Associate Agreement so you can be compliant and use it, but Skype for Business is a great example of why HIPAA compliance doesn’t means secure or good quality because Skype for Business is just as bad.
Clay: Got you, okay. Are there some platforms out there that you’re aware of that you could recommend that can be able to allow us to be HIPAA compliant?
Roy: Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you go to telementalhealthcomparisons.com, that’s Jay Ostrowski’s site where he just lists like everything that’s available ever. It has all this checklists for features that they have including Business Associate Agreements. There are lots of platforms in the sense that you pay some amount per month and you have a whole site that often has like record keeping in it, secure messaging with clients, maybe it does things like appointment keeping, payments, and all of that stuff in addition to the video. Then you have things like Zoom, which is just the video, but Zoom costs like $200 a month. It’s really expensive. It’s not really in play. I actually kind of pestered them about that. I’m like, “Are you sure there’s no way you can bring this down?” They are like, “Nope. That’s the fee is you want the Business Associate Agreement, if you want the HIPAA compliance.”
VSee, like, the timing is too bad here because VSee, I know you know about VSee. They are a very interesting company. They are the software I use actually. Basically right now, they are influx of trying to figure out how they are going to serve us because they kind of follow that Zoom model where it’s like $200 a month to get the Business Associate Agreement. I have pestered them like, “Look, that’s just not reasonable for us,” and they agree. We know right now if you contact VSee and say, “Hey, I’m a solo therapist who wants to use your software.” They are going to give you a better deal than that. I don’t know exactly what deal but they will give you a better one. I’m currently emailing them right now because they are currently trying to actually figure out something even better.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you exactly what that is because I don’t know what it is, but very soon, VSee will be extremely affordable. They give the Business Associate Agreement so that people like us can use it. One of the reason I like VSee is that it does that game of high video quality even when your internet connection is going bad. It does that really well. That’s its strength. That’s its point of strength.
Clay: Okay. Telemental Health Comparison, I’ve been there. There are lots of options out there. We’ve talked about a couple here today. Do you see some changes on the horizon as far as the different platforms that are out there?
Roy: Not a lot. The thing VSee is doing would be a change because they are trying to take something that’s just the video, like video by itself and make it accessible to the small provider. Basically, the market for software that’s suitable for this is really interested in doctors. They are not super interested in psychotherapists and that’s because the doctors will pay then a lot more money for it and partly also because the doctors are getting funding from things like Medicare to do telemedicine. There is also Medicare in like Veteran’s Administration money for telemental health as well. There is but it’s not as big a money. Also, those places already have their own systems. They don’t need new software.
The telemental health market is not as big a market; however, it is still a big emerging market. What we have is all these companies that pop up purely for telemental health because the market is so different from all the other telehealth markets like the telemedicine market or tele this or that market. Telemental health is so different from those that we see companies pop up that just the telemental health. We see a lot of them, like Wecounsel recently popped up. Adaptive Telehealth, it’s actually Jay Ostrowski’s new product. That’s another one that popped up. I think we’re going to keep seeing more of those and what they are focusing on is the idea of not just having the video but having a whole kind of practice management system around the video. They are trying to kind of do that value add.
I don’t know what’s going to happen but what I’m interested in seeing is whether or not the model where you just have a video program like Skype, like we’ve been talking about. You just have a video program and that’s it. You otherwise keep your records the same way you keep all your other records. Whether that’s going to survive or if it’s just going to be like five years from now, we’re going to be talking about using something like Skype or VSee, the standalone video software, is a really archaic thing. If like online therapy is going to be purely done through these platforms that include appointments, record keeping, payment systems, stuff like that. If that’s going to be so normal and we would never think of using a standalone video. That’s the thing I’m kind of curious to see. I have no idea where it’s going to go.
Clay: It’s a very fluid market as things adapt.
Roy: Yeah.
Clay: Now, one thing that I’m curious about and have you had this experience where a client either in Kansas or the UK, Canada, says, “I have Skype. I’m comfortable with Skype. I’ve gotten them all signed up with an account. I don’t know this VSee thing. I don’t know how to register. What do I do? How do I connect? Is it going to work with my camera?” It seems like a complicating hoop. Have you heard that from some of the clients that you’re working with?
Roy: Yeah. Honestly, I often sound like a commercial for VSee. I promise you, they pay me nothing, but that’s actually one of the reasons I’m so excited of VSee, like why I’m so big on VSee because it actually is really easy to set up. My most tech non-savvy clients have no problem setting up VSee. They were afraid they would and then they found out that it wasn’t hard because it’s just as easy as Skype. You basically like you give them your basic info, click download, install, and it works just like Skype does. That’s part of why I haven’t had that problem, but that’s also I think why the online full blown platform thing is so big because they include like waiting rooms. Your client, all they have to do is like click the link and it takes them to a space and it says, “Your therapist will be here soon,” and they don’t have to do anything special. That, I think, is why that kind of approach is popular because it reduces all those technical steps for the client.
Clay: Absolutely. Okay. I’m not sure, I don’t think we’ve talked much about this. I don’t know if you want to speak to it about some of the licensure issues across oceans, the international and state lines. How are things changing? What are some things that people should be aware of?
Roy: Well, what you should be aware of, and I’m actually still surprised that the awareness of this is as sparse as it is. Remember, we live in a nation of independent states and each of those independent states manages its own licensing. Every state has its own licensing boards and licensing boards are not there to support us. They are there to protect consumers from us. That’s the idea and so any states licensing board wants to manage who gets to practice counseling, social work, or psychology in their state. If you’re not licensed in their state, they are not going to be very stoked about you practicing with people who live in their state.
I’m in Oregon and this is the funny thing. I’m in Portland, Oregon, so literally, I’m like a 10-minute drive from the Washington border. I just cross the river and I’m in Washington, but I can’t practice there. My client is just across the river here in Washington. If they live here, I should not do teletherapy with them because I’m not licensed in Washington. Washington State would not be very happy about that. Now of course they can just cross the bridge and come to me and that’s not a problem. In fact, many of my clients do. They live up there. That’s kind of an irony especially because my online practice is entirely to Japan. I don’t have any American clients or any clients that are in America. Actually right now, they are all Americans, they are just American living in Japan that’s because Japan doesn’t regulate psychotherapy.
Doing psychotherapy in Japan, there’s no illegality and my own licensing board here in Oregon, the way they rule on that is just, in terms of distance counseling, anything legal is acceptable to them and I have to obey the laws of the place where my client is. That’s the rule for me. By the way, I just want to make sure everyone knows that I did use to practice in Japan. I used to live there. I practice there. I know all of the systems. I didn’t just randomly decide to do that. From ethical perspective, I do a lot of basic stuff. There’s more to just deciding I’m going to practice there. Just so you know.
Clay: It’s important to say, if you live in Oregon, Kansas, you’re working with clients that you are licensed in that state to work with.
Roy: Yeah, that’s a way to go. Right, exactly and there are a few states that have further restrictions like Florida, Arkansas, and Texas. They all have some further restrictions for therapists within their own state in terms of being able to practice out of their state. I don’t know the details. I just know those are the ones with the weird stuff.
Clay: Yeah and I’ve heard Georgia as well, but I’m hoping to get some more information.
Roy: Oh really. Yeah, I’ve heard of it.
Clay: Yeah, apparently there is a special course that therapists need to take in order to allow them to work with other people in Georgia even.
Roy: That’s right. So is Arkansas.
Clay: Okay.
Roy: That’s interesting. That was interesting which states do that.
Clay: A lot of this is changing. Have you heard of anything, any kind of movement, lobbying group out there saying that we need to….?
Roy: Sure.
Clay: What’s going on with that?
Roy: Okay. There are definitely different groups who are trying to push for something to change, but most efforts to push change aren’t going to make any difference because it’s not like voting a bill. You have to like get every licensing board for every profession because there are at least three of them. There are usually four in some places, right? You got to get all those boards to agree to do some kind of across state agreement and the essential reason for their existence would prevent them from doing that. The thing that we would need is not eliminating the barriers so much as creating some kind of system whereby license exchanges were easy or simple.
For example, your driver’s license works in any state. You can take your driver’s license, come to Oregon, even though I can probably guarantee you that Oregon drivers laws are different from your state, they will still let you do it. For therapy, they won’t let you do that. What you would need to do is have some way, some kind of expedited process of being able to get an Oregon license. That’s what we would need, right? In order to do that, you need standardization. One thing that’s happening is the American Counseling Association is actually working on that. There’s the thing called the 20-20 Program and the idea is to have a standardized way of licensing LPCs in all the states. My license would benefit from that.
If the program succeeds, I’m crossing my fingers and knocking on wood because it’s a big ‘if’, then the idea is that I would be able to get licensure reciprocation in any state really easily. If my client moves to Kansas, it would be easy for me to call up Kansas and say, “Hey, I want a Kansas LPC.” I jumped through some hoops and then I got it and I can work with that person.
Clay: Wow.
Roy: We’ll see how it goes, though. We’ll see. It’s just a lot of politics. Its’ really hard.
Clay: Talk to me about the DCC, the Distance Counseling Credential. This does not supersede any of what we’re talking about though, right?
Roy: Not at all, no. It doesn’t have any power other than, I know New Jersey requires you to have or the New Jersey Counseling Board, I think it’s just counselors in New Jersey are required to have some special training before they can do online therapy and the DCC qualifies for that training, but it’s not the only it does. It just does qualify and then in general, some of those things are where you’re like, you have to have some special training. The DCC may qualify for that although it doesn’t require you to get the DCC. It just requires you to get something like the DCC.
Clay: Okay.
Roy: Do we actually say what that’s called, the Distance Credentialed Counselor? Do we actually name that?
Clay: You may have just skipped right over. It’s Distance Counseling Credential, right?
Roy: Yeah.
Clay: Okay.
Roy: I think something like that, yes. It’s from NBCC, so once again, it’s for counselors like me or technically, it is but really, it’s for everybody. It’s just that NBCC happens to be the body doing it. What’s funny, you don’t see an equivalent in social work or psychology, and in my experience, any SW and APA have largely just sort of said, “Hey, the NBCC is doing a good job. We’ll leave it to them.” It has been my experience. The DCC can be really useful for proving you’ve had some training, but it doesn’t have teeth. There are situations where it can overcome some issue. One confusion people have and I really want to break this myth is the idea that having the DCC may allow you to practice across state lines. That is absolutely 100% not true. In fact, when you get the DCC, you agree to abide by NBCCs guidelines on distance counseling. In there, it says very explicitly, you don’t practice in states where you’re not licensed.
Clay: Right. Good. Just being aware of time because this is such a huge topic, anything else you’d like…
Roy: Yeah, right.
Clay: This is really important for a therapist to know working online. Anything that comes to mind.
Roy: Okay. The DCC is soon to be replaced by a much more updated credential. I can’t really say more about it than that, but that’s plenty right there. Look for that and it’s going to be way more thorough, way more interesting. As we’re going to the future, look for the nature of online therapy to change. Have you seen an Oculus Rift recently, how like VR is super hot right now? Yeah. Google has Google Cardboard, a little cheap VR. Oculus VR has more heavy VR. I got to use it the other day. It’s amazing. I talked to a guy who works at Microsoft on a much more kind of low barrier version of that. I’m going to bet in 10, 15 years, online therapy will be more VR based. That could be really interesting. It’s going to take a while though, like with all the barriers, it’s not nearly as close as we would hope. It’s going to be video and audio like we do right now for a long time.
Here’s the really important thing, online therapy is different, not better or worse. It’s really important to remember that it’s different. For those who are naysayers, that’s important because you want to understand that if they see problems with it, it’s not because it’s bad. It’s because it’s different from what they are used to. You do have to learn to do it. For those who are excited about it, you need to make sure they understand, “Look, it’s not the same as just getting a different office room. You got to learn to use the video appropriately.” Whether that means you need to do training or not, I’m actually not going to speak to it because I think a lot of people do it well without special training, but if you don’t really know what you’re getting into with that, training is a good idea and there’s a lot of training programs you can do such as the DCC. There’s also the Telemental Health Institute or the Zur Institute. They have trainings on this as well. Can I also just plug what I do?
Clay: Yes, absolutely. I was just getting to that. I want to know more. What do you bring to the table here, Roy?
Roy: Okay. The thing that can be really useful to people is what if, Clay, every week, every single week I got online for 90 minutes and you can get on there and ask me anything you want?
Clay: Wow. Sign me up.
Roy: Right. I do that. You can sign up for it right now.
Clay: Excellent. Tell me how.
Roy: Okay. It’s called Person-Centered Tech Support, personcenteredtech.com. You can go sign up for Person-Centered Tech Support and the thing I just described is what we call the Office Hours feature. That’s every week, 90 minutes. I’m on there. We record the session. You send in your question ahead of time or come with them live. The reason for sending in questions is you don’t have to attend. If you can’t actually make the time, you just send in your question. I’ll address it and you watch the recording afterwards or you get on there live and we discuss. There are a lot of discussions in these open office hours about all kinds of tech topics. Anything tech you want to talk about that I know how to talk about, I can. Along with that actually, it’s not just Office Hours.
We also have a thing called The Video Help Center, which is full of videos that show you how to do all the little things that I tell you you have to do. This happened because I was always frustrated by telling people things like, “You really need to encrypt your computer,” and then they go, “Okay, how do I do that?” I’m like, “Well, I’m sure if you go search ‘encrypt my computer’ online, someone will have a YouTube tutorial about it or something. It turns out, they don’t. It turns out I’m wrong. You can’t find this stuff online. There’s all these stuff I’m telling people you need to do but the how of it eludes them so we made the Video Help Center. In the Video Help Center, we have made those videos that have tutorials about how to do all those little things.
We have a video that shows you how to encrypt your computer on every kind of computer – on a Mac, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10. Whatever it is, we’ve got a video for that and all of that is part of your subscription. It’s basically $10 a month if you buy it annually.
Clay: Back up, $10 a month?
Roy: Yup. $10 a month, you’ve got to buy it annually. You’ve got to buy your time to get $10 a month.
Clay: Okay.
Roy: But remember, that’s just $120. That’s less than an hour of consultation with me and you can get weekly access to Office Hours, all the Video Help Center stuff anytime you want whenever you need it.
Clay: This is like having a little Roy Huggins just whenever you need him.
Roy: Yes, that’s exactly it.
Clay: There are a lot of complicated things but you’ve been doing this for decades now, all these knowledge.
Roy: Yeah, yeah, right tech stuff. Yeah.
Clay: Okay, fascinating. Okay, good.
Roy: You want to join, Clay? You can go join.
Clay: As soon as I’m finished here, I am going to join because sometimes when I talk to you, I get completely freaked out and scared.
Roy: Yeah, yeah. That’s what happens, right.
Clay: And then also incredibly inspired. If I can get rid of the fear because I know I’m doing it correctly, then I think that can kind of soak in the inspiration.
Roy: Yeah. I’ve a lot of sessions or if you go look at old recordings because you can look at every recording ever if you wanted to, you’ll see in all these old recordings where like I’m spending 10 minutes with somebody and really all I’m doing is I’m counseling because the person is not sure that they can do the thing, like encrypting your computer can be kind of intimidating if you’re not sure what’s going to happen, and so talking people through it, talking about the value of it, talking about the safety it. Yeah, I’m there every week for people who need that.
Clay: Okay, incredible. I want to be cognizant of your time. I think that we’ve kind of whet the appetite for a lot of in depth conversations that are going to happen and that they can get a lot of these questions and find out a lot more by going to personcenteredtech.com.
Roy: That’s right.
Clay: I’m sure you also offer one on one consultations if they need that.
Roy: Sure yeah and if you’re a subscriber to the Person-Centered Tech Support, the consultations are like 40% off. They are way cheaper if you’re a subscriber. Also, we have a lot of free stuff too by the way. If you go there and subscribe to our newsletter, we have two hours of continuing ed courses free for our subscribers because we want, like, there’s two hours of courses that are just trying to introduce you to this world that I’m trying to teach everyone about because there’s so much orientation needed for therapists. The two courses are free. We just want to give them to you. We don’t want the barrier of asking you to pay for them. All you got to do is subscribe to our newsletter to which I regularly send articles about information and updates. You can take two NBCC approved CE hours for free when you sign up. We also have a bunch of useful forms for your practice that you get for free when you sign up for the newsletter, which is also free. There’s actually a lot of free stuff in addition to the Person-Centered Tech Support.
Clay: Okay. All these links are going to be in the show notes, everybody, personcenteredtech.com, how to get in touch with Roy. That’s all going to be there. We’re going to say goodbye to Roy but come talk to us, ask questions, make some comments below so that we can learn more of how we can meet your needs. We’re also on Twitter and Facebook. Ladies and gentlemen, let’s thank Roy for all of your time today.
Roy: Absolutely. Thanks for having me, Clay. I appreciate it.
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