Are you wondering whether or not to list your therapy services on Open Path Psychotherapy Collective?
Then you’ve landed in the right place.
This article is an Open Path Psychotherapy Collective Review for therapists who are considering listing their practice on the platform.
What is Open Path Psychotherapy Collective?
Open Path Psychotherapy Collective is a non-profit organization that partners with therapists in private practice to provide affordable therapy services to clients from lower or middle-income families. Open Path provides a free therapist listing to therapists who partner with them in their initiative.
Is Open Path Psychotherapy Collective Legit?
Open Path Psychotherapy Collective is a legitimate site for therapists to list their practice. However, listing with Open Path has a catch. Open Path provides a free therapist directory to therapists in exchange for their agreement that they will provide a sliding scale rate to clients found through their Open Path profile.
In accordance with Open Path Psychotherapy Collective’s policy, clients who find you through your Open Path Psychotherapy Collective profile will pay a sliding scale rate between $40 and $70 for individual sessions and between $40 and $80 for couple or family sessions. A typical session being 50-minutes in length. As long as the fee is within the price range, Open Path allows you to negotiate the fee with the client.
Who Can List on Open Path Psychotherapy Collective?
According to the Open Path Psychotherapy Collective website, eligible therapists must hold a licence or registration as a “mental health clinician with a graduate degree in psychotherapy, counseling, or related field from an accredited institution.” Open Path accepts provisionally licensed and student intern applications as well, pending an approval process. In addition, Open Path’s therapist directory is open to both American and Canadian therapists.
Benefits and Limitations
When it comes to listing your therapy services on Open Path Psychotherapy Collective, you should weigh the benefits and limitations to ensure that listing on the platform is a marketing initiative that fits with your practice vision. As this wouldn’t be a true Open Path Psychotherapy Review without highlighting the benefits and limitations of the platform.
Benefits
Here are the benefits of listing on Open Path:
Free Therapist Listing for Therapists
First of all, Open Path provides a free therapist listing for therapists who support their initiative to provide affordable therapy to clients with financial need. So, the biggest benefit is that you can reach more clients for free.
Accepting Clients Button
One thing that stops therapists from listing on Open Path is the fear that they will have an overflow of sliding scale clients entering their inbox that they don’t have the space to accept. Fortunately, this really is a non-worry because Open Path provides an accepting client button that you can easily turn on and off right from your profile dashboard. When you’re accepting new sliding scale clients you can turn on your profile and you can turn it off when you’re not. So, by listing with Open Path you won’t receive an influx of new sliding scale clients, as long as you turn off your profile when you’re not accepting new sliding scale clients.
Member Benefits
Another benefit is that Open Path doesn’t just stop at giving you a free therapist listing but they also provide member benefits to therapists who sign up. Member benefits include anything from free learning opportunities to discounts on partnered companies’ products and services including therapy trainings, practice management software subscriptions and other therapist directory memberships. So, you get a lot more perks than just a free therapist listing.
Provisional Therapist and Student Interns Profiles
Not all therapist directories allow provisional therapists or student interns to list on their platforms, but Open Path does. Upon application approval, provisional therapists are allowed to charge the same fee range as fully licenced or registered therapists which is between $40 and $70 for individual sessions and $40 to $80 for couples and family sessions. Whereas, student interns are required to charge a $30 per session fee to Open Path clients.
Group Practice and Clinic Profiles
If you’re a group practice or a clinic, Open Path also allows you to advertise on their platform. However, they do recommend that group practices and clinics have their therapists list individually on platform because it’s a more effective marketing strategy. And as a business coach, I definitely agree with them on that.
Autonomy Over Your Work with Open Path Clients
Once you’ve received a referral and you’ve negotiated the sliding scale rate in accordance with Open Path’s fee range, everything else is business as usual. Open Path gives you the autonomy to work with clients found through their platform the same way you would with any other client that you see in your practice. From appointment bookings to intake paperwork to payment processing, you will use the same systems and processes with Open Path clients that you would with your full-pay clients.
Limitations
Although there are a lot of benefits to listing with Open Path, I would be remiss in my Open Path Psychotherapy Collective review if I didn’t also highlight the limitations. Here they are:
Must Provide a Sliding Scale
For some therapists, a limitation for listing with Open Path is that they must provide a sliding scale to clients. Although, some therapists incorporate sliding scale spaces into their practices, others do not. If you don’t provide sliding scale spots in your practice or the fee range is too low and not financially feasible for you then listing your services on Open Path might not be for you. When you agree to take on a client from Open Path, you are agreeing to provide the client with a fee within the Open Path pay range while they’re in financial need
Clients are Referred Based on a Membership
Another limitation is that you receive clients on a referral-basis through the platform based on the clients’ membership with Open Path. To become members, prospective clients pay a small one-time membership fee to Open Path. Because not every prospective client will pay a membership fee, the membership model limits the number of referrals that you’ll receive through the platform. However, the clients who do reach out may be more invested in the therapy process because they have already invested money into their therapy journey.
Conclusion
As therapists, we’re always looking for new and effective ways to advertise our therapy practices and there’s not many places you can market your services for free. Personally, I love what Open Path is doing and I support their initiative to help clients access affordable therapy while also promoting therapists and providing them benefits as well. It’s a win, win in my books. So, it’s no surprise that my Open Path Psychotherapy Collective review is that it is a great way to advertise your therapy practice, given that you have space in your practice to provide a sliding scale to Open Path clients.
So, if this Open Path Psychotherapy Collective review convinced you to sign up for a free therapist listing then check out Open Path by clicking here and filling out their application form.
Even if you don’t have space for sliding scale at the moment, you can set up your profile so that when space becomes available you can easily turn on your profile signalling that you’re accepting new clients.
What do you have to lose?
Go ahead sign up for a free therapist listing on Open Path today.
Want to learn about other free ways to advertise your practice?
Check out 7 Free Therapist Directories to Grow Your Online Presence.
Disclaimer:
Links in this article are referral links, where Evaspare Inc. may receive compensation in exchange for promoting or endorsing Open Path Psychotherapy Collective.
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