10 Signs It’s Time to Expand Your Telepsychiatry Program

The demand for telehealth continues to grow, and if you’re an organization utilizing a virtual behavioral health solution like telepsychiatry, you understand the value of this platform first-hand. By the numbers, 96% of behavioral health providers think telehealth has proven its worth as a therapeutic tool during the pandemic, and 59% of patients say they would use telehealth for mental healthcare.

It’s clear patients and providers alike are reaping the benefits of telehealth for mental health. However, it can be difficult to determine when you should expand your telepsychiatry program.

In our experience at Iris Telehealth, we’ve seen more than 90% of our partnerships grow within the first year. But, how do you know if expansion is the right choice for your organization? Keep reading to learn the 10 signs it’s time to expand your telepsychiatry program.

1. You have an extensive waiting list for behavioral health patients

Telepsychiatry helps organizations improve patient wait times. However, if your practice continues to grow, or you’re a new CCBHC working to meet an influx of patient needs, you may experience waitlists as you did before investing in telepsychiatry. Our partners have found that the simplest solution in this situation is to continue expanding their already-existing telepsychiatry department rather than hiring an on-site psychiatrist, which could take ample time to find the right match.

At Iris, we help organizations through this process, using an approach we call “The Iris Match.” The Iris Match is our promise to our partners that we will ensure their provider will meet their organization’s needs, culture, and values. By the end of our match process, our partner organizations have a provider who will not only fill their care gaps, but who their care team and patients love.

2. Your existing psychiatrists are overwhelmed by their patient load

Part of the reason you may have started a telepsychiatry program was to lighten the workload for your on-site providers, but due to high demand, you may need more help. This growing pain might mean it’s time to increase the hours of operation for your telepsychiatry program so your on-site staff can function without feeling overwhelmed. Many partners have found that telepsychiatry works as an excellent supplementary staffing model when used correctly.

3. Your care team and patients are responding well to telepsychiatry, and outcomes are improving

If your organization was hesitant about telepsychiatry at first – you’re not alone. Upfront, we often hear organizations say they’re concerned their patients won’t like the platform. However, after working with Iris, this concern is quickly eliminated. Technology is now a significant part of our daily lives, and patients are typically comfortable using telehealth for mental health care.

Additionally, telepsychiatry providers integrate well into organizations and create valuable relationships with the on-site teams and patients. Due to this extra help and seamless integration, the desire for virtual visits and care typically increases. If this experience resonates with your organization, growing your telepsychiatry program can help lead to happier patients and better outcomes.

4. You need a specialized provider

If you started your telepsychiatry program with a more general provider to help cover basic patient needs, you may soon realize you need specialty care as well. Whether that’s finding a Spanish-speaking provider, a child psychiatrist, or even a geriatric psychiatrist – telepsychiatry has you covered. Thankfully, this platform has an expansive reach and can connect organizations with providers from all over the country.

Additionally, at Iris, our rigorous vetting process ensures that all our behavioral health providers are top quality and have a track record of providing exceptional care. We also have several provider types to help meet an organization’s needs. Whether you’re looking to work with a psychiatrist, PMHNP, or an LCSW, we can help recommend and match you with the right provider for your needs.

5. Your number of referrals for new patients is increasing

When an organization implements a telepsychiatry program, they’re able to meet the mental health needs of more patients. While this success is positive, it can increase referrals and make it difficult to meet demand. If you’re familiar with this challenge, it might be an excellent time to consider expanding your telepsychiatry department.

6. You are acquiring more patient rooms or space in your building

Are you adding to your current facility or gaining access to more space to help with your growing patient population? If this is the case, you are in a great position to plan and begin expanding your telepsychiatry department. That way, once you gain access to your new space, you are ready to fill it.

7. Your no-show rate is decreasing

Telepsychiatry increases patient access to high-quality care. Because of this increased access and convenience, you may see no-show rates decrease. With lower no-show rates, your providers may find themselves with increasingly full schedules. To meet demand and help your providers continue providing excellent care, you might consider increasing your telepsychiatry program’s hours.

8. You realize your telepsychiatry provider is essential to your team

At Iris, we only extend a formal offer to 6% of clinical candidates who apply to work with us. That means we know we’re getting the best of the best. One of the reasons our partnerships have such longevity is the quality of care our providers facilitate. While organizations may have some initial concerns about provider integration, they are pleasantly surprised to find that their telepsychiatry provider quickly becomes an essential part of the team.

If this is the case for you, maybe it’s time to consider other telemental health best practices, like expanding your provider’s hours from 16 to 30 or even exploring bringing on another telepsychiatry provider.

9. You still can’t find the right on-site psychiatrist

If you’re struggling to find an on-site provider for your organization, you’re not alone. Due to the provider shortage, finding help is a typical challenge. This inability to find providers is one of the primary reasons telepsychiatry has grown in popularity. If you’ve experienced great success with your telepsychiatry provider, it could be a good time to invest in bringing another psychiatrist, LCSW or PMHNP onto the team.

10. You realize that telepsychiatry is a sustainable, long-term solution

Telepsychiatry is the future of mental healthcare and serves as a sustainable, long-term solution for your organization. If you’re ready to make telepsychiatry your one-stop shop for all things mental healthcare, consider expanding your program.

What does it look like to expand your telepsychiatry program?

Growing your telepsychiatry solution doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, most organizations have taken care of the hard part by making the initial investment, figuring out technology, creating workflows, and training providers. That said, growing your telepsychiatry program can be as simple as adding a couple days of coverage to your program or reaching out to your telepsychiatry organization to see if they can help you find another provider and implement telepsychiatry best practices. Regardless of your needs, expanding a current telepsychiatry program can set you and your organization up for success.

About Iris Telehealth

At Iris, we work with you to create a long-term placement that facilitates continuity of care for your patients and care team. Our rigorous vetting process ensures that all our behavioral health providers are top quality and have a track record of providing exceptional care to communities like yours.

If you would like to talk more about how we can help your organization secure a long-term provider fit, contact us today.

Why Choosing a Job That Aligns With Your Values Is So Important

As a mental health professional, you understand that working somewhere that aligns with your values is essential. The mental health field comes with unique frustrations that can make doing what you love challenging. That’s why working somewhere with a supportive environment is critical for providers. You need work-life balance, flexible hours, and time for self-care to recharge. However, finding an organization that prioritizes these things isn’t always easy.

That’s where telehealth comes in. Telehealth sets the stage for meaningful work in a low-stress setting that helps you take care of what’s most important – you. In this blog, we’ll discuss the benefits of virtual care, how to find a people-focused telehealth organization that meets your values, and the importance of job matching.

The benefits of practicing behavioral health virtually

According to a report by Medscape, 24% of mental health professionals have changed their work settings to try and alleviate burnout. For some providers, this change may mean switching to telehealth. Practicing mental health virtually comes with many benefits, including:

  • Flexibility: Flexibility is an essential piece of what makes virtual care a game-changer for providers. Not only does it allow them to work from wherever they want in the country, but it also frees up their schedules. With less time spent commuting, they can dedicate more time to their hobbies, spend more time with their friends and families, and prioritize self-care.
  • Team-based approach: Even though telehealth providers aren’t on-site, they can still experience the same benefits of a team-based approach. For example, on-site teams can assist patients and help reassure them about the telehealth process. Some providers even have meetings with their on-site teams where they can bounce ideas off each other and connect.
  • Low-stress environments: As a provider dealing with potentially high-stress settings, finding a low-stress job may feel impossible. With the computer screen as a barrier, telehealth can help providers manage compassion fatigue. Providers have an opportunity to step away after a stressful moment when they need to, take a breath, and ultimately experience a better work-life balance.

Among these benefits, our providers at Iris Telehealth have cited more control over hours and better work-life balance as reasons they chose to be telepsychiatry providers. Additionally, they said communication, staff connection, and clinical support were why they decided to work with Iris in particular.

When it comes to finding a job you love, you shouldn’t settle, and telehealth makes getting what you want and need possible.

Finding the right organizational fit

The value of working with an organization you connect with is essential. That said, things like culture, convenience, and getting licensed in particular states are all important things to keep in mind when looking for an organization that’s aligned with your values.

  • Culture: At Iris, one of our core values is putting people over all else, and our providers are no exception. That’s why we provide top-notch support to all our clinicians. Whether that means making tech support available 24/7 or providing them with an advocate by their side to help navigate tricky situations, we ensure they’re set up to succeed and have the space to focus on their patients.
  • Convenience: We value making things simple and easy for our providers. That means taking care of things like licensing and all the paperwork that comes with it. We take pride in creating a low-stress environment that lets our clinicians do what they love knowing we’ve got the rest covered.
  • Job matching: This component is a central tool to help ensure providers are matched with an organization that’s aligned with their values. At Iris, we call this process “The Iris Match.” We use this process to help providers narrow in on the perfect fit by identifying the criteria that makes up their ideal job. These criteria might include their preferred working schedule or values. Organizations have standards they’re looking to fulfill, too. At Iris, we take the criteria of both parties and fit the two that work best together. You can learn more about this process in our behavioral health provider’s guide to job matching.

When a provider finds the right fit, it can help provide stability for their patients and the organizations they serve.

Telehealth connects you with the right patient populations for you

As a behavioral health provider, you likely spent a lot of time and dedication trying to figure out the specific population you love and value working with. However, you may live somewhere else and are unable to connect with these patients. Telehealth solves this problem. One of the many great things about providing behavioral health virtually is that you can work from wherever you want and still work with the population you love.

Not only is this access great for you as a provider, but it’s also indispensable for patients who need and value your help. Telepsychiatry provides an extensive reach and offers a more significant opportunity to help more people. Especially those in communities you feel connected to. That’s why, we highly value providing licensing and credentialing services and matching providers with their preferred population. By simplifying a typically tricky process, providers can live where they want while still getting to work with their population and a patient can work with a provider who can best meet their specialty needs.

Whether you’re trying to find a way to work with your preferred population or looking for the flexibility that allows you to have more energy to live a life you love, telehealth can set the stage for a work environment that aligns with your values.

Where Iris Telehealth fits in

At Iris, we believe telepsychiatry is the future of mental healthcare. If you’d like to learn more about our services or you’d like to learn how you can find a job that aligns with your values, contact us today.

How You Can Increase Throughput in Your Emergency Department With Telepsychiatry

According to the CDC, approximately 146.5 million patients visit hospital emergency departments (EDs) in the United States each year. Among those seeking emergency care from EDs is a growing number of patients suffering from mental health crises. However, when it comes to addressing this high demand for psychiatric care, many health systems don’t know where to start. Fortunately, telepsychiatry can help.

The current state of telepsychiatry in the ED

So, why is it difficult to address mental health needs in the ED? The truth is, hospitals and health systems are overwhelmed, and addressing mental health needs in the emergency department can prove challenging for several reasons:

  • Increased need for specialty care: Hospitals have witnessed a 24% spike in mental health emergency department visits for kids aged 5 to 11 and a 31% increase for adolescents aged 12 to 17.
  • Lack of resources: When they don’t have adequate behavioral health support, some hospitals and health systems may work with locum tenens to help supplement gaps left by the ongoing provider shortage. However, locums often lack integration and don’t facilitate a long-term, team-based approach.
  • High costs: According to the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, mental and substance use disorder ED visits had service delivery costs of more than $5.6 billion, representing more than 7% of the $76.3 billion total in ED visit costs.
  • Patient return rate: In an analysis of ED visits for mental health and substance abuse, 14.2% of patients returned to the ED or hospital within 30 days.

If you’re seeing these problems day in and day out, you’re not alone.

Enter: Telepsychiatry services in the ED.

How can telepsychiatry help with ED throughput?

Telepsychiatry improves ED throughput to quickly provide patients with access to high-quality psychiatric care through a virtual visit. With telepsychiatry, patients no longer need to wait hours to receive treatment from an ED physician or an in-person consultation from a psychiatric provider, which drastically reduces their length of stay in the ED.

However, before officially launching your telepsychiatry program into your ED, make sure you’ve worked through any barriers or misconceptions around telepsychiatry within your organization.

Three common barriers to telepsychiatry in the ED

Telepsychiatry is growing in popularity. In fact, according to the APA, nearly nearly six in 10 would use telehealth services for mental healthcare.

However, despite the growing popularity, there is still hesitancy around implementing a virtual solution, whether its technology concerns, common misconceptions about telepsychiatry, or cultural considerations. Determining how to tackle these worries is essential to a successful implementation.

 

  1. Technology barriers
    The most common objection to implementing telepsychiatry into the ED is the fear of not knowing how to use the technology correctly, as well as a lack of fluency in technology. By partnering with a telepsychiatry vendor like Iris Telehealth, you’ll get a technology-neutral addition to your team that seamlessly integrates into your current systems and equipment you’re already using.
  2. Misconceptions about telepsychiatry
    A common misconception about telepsychiatry in the ED is that it isn’t as effective as in-person treatment. However, telepsychiatry can be just as effective as in-person treatment. When a patient is experiencing a mental health emergency, telepsychiatry can ensure they’re quickly assessed, diagnosed, and provided with a treatment plan.
  3. Changing ED culture
    Another tough objection is getting staff on board with telepsychiatry in the ED. Attending physicians and staff are used to providers being in close proximity to them. When EDs partner with Iris Telehealth, they’re organizations and providers are offered continual support and resources, no matter the time of day.

The biggest benefits for EDs working with a telepsychiatry vendor

When emergency departments partner with a telepsychiatry vendor like Iris Telehealth, they receive on-demand support and resources. Telepsych providers can assess a patient’s needs and manage their risk to ensure each patient receives proper treatment and is dispositioned quickly. Additionally, EDs can expect to see improved patient care.

Here are just a few benefits patients receive through telepsychiatry:

  • Improved access to specialty care that might not otherwise be available
  • Better outcomes due to integrated behavioral health and primary care
  • Reduction in delayed care
  • Reduction in transportation barriers, such as lack of transportation or the need for long drives
  • Increased feelings of safety, security, and privacy

Emergency departments that utilize telepsychiatry have access to psychiatrists around the clock. And when mental health patients have access to adequate psychiatric care, they leave healthier and happier.

How telepsychiatry transforms the ED

Telepsychiatry is making it possible for more people to get the care they need in a hospital setting without the long wait. As telehealth becomes the norm, organizations see the benefits by way of on-demand resources, cost savings, and additional expertise.

 

 

On-demand services: Telepsychiatry serves as a 24/7 resource for organizations and their patients. That means patients have access to high-quality providers who ensure they receive proper treatment.

Cost savings: This virtual solution helps hospitals meet their organizational and financial needs by helping them avoid unnecessary bed holds.

By implementing a telepsychiatry solution, your organization can help more people in the community, increase throughput in the ED, and release pressure on your providers and overall organization.

How Iris Telehealth can help

We ensure patients always receive the best care and treatment possible. When a patient comes through the emergency department seeking mental health services, it’s critical to make their experience as seamless as possible.

If you would like to learn more details about how our services can integrate into your ED, you can download our whitepaper today.

How to Provide Culturally Competent Care Through Telehealth

Culturally competent care effectively meets social and cultural needs by addressing issues like language barriers, low literacy rates, and lack of knowledge about racial and ethnic minority health. This approach to care can help providers and organizations improve health outcomes, increase the quality of care, and move closer to eliminating ethnic and racial health disparities.

Social determinants of health can create and exacerbate mental health conditions, hindering people’s ability to access the care they need. For example, one of the five categories of social determinants of health is access to quality care. Without cultural competency, quality care is hard to find for people who come from different backgrounds, especially when there are language or cultural barriers.

However, health care services that put patient values, beliefs, and behaviors first can help ensure your organization is delivering culturally competent care. Commitment to cultural competence begins by recognizing that healthcare is constantly evolving and patients deserve to have the care they need without fear of being misunderstood.

The importance of cultural competence

Currently, racial and ethnic minorities make up about a third of the U.S population. By 2055, they are expected to become the majority, according to Cigna. With an increasingly diverse population, the likelihood of people having limited English proficiency, less adherence to Western cultural norms, and more unique social and cultural needs might lead to larger healthcare disparities.

By practicing cultural competency and maintaining mutual respect and increased understanding between providers and patients, everyone benefits. According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), incorporating culturally competent strategies can lead to better communication and experience, better information, and improved patient-provider matching.

Additionally, the Health Research & Educational Trust highlights three other benefits of cultural competence:

  • Business benefits: practicing cultural competence helps with the efficiency of care services, decreases barriers, increases overall the market share of an organization, and incorporates different perspectives.
  • Health benefits: implementing cultural competency can lead to collecting patient data and improving treatment, reducing medical errors, incorporating preventative care, and reducing health care disparities for various patient populations.
  • Social benefits: executing cultural competency also leads to cultivating mutual respect and understanding for both providers and patients, increasing overall trust, and promoting inclusion of all community members.

With the implementation of cultural competency, everyone involved can benefit greatly. While it is almost impossible to know everything about every culture, you can be one step closer to providing culturally competent care for your patients with the right approach.

How to provide culturally competent care through telehealth

It can be difficult for individuals living in rural areas to find a provider who can understand and engage with their culture. Issues like language barriers and lack of innate trust in receiving care from providers who are not part of their cultural group can pose an enormous challenge.

Telehealth gives access to patients looking for a provider who can better understand their culture. Regardless of where a patient lives, telehealth can connect them with a provider who can better relate to their experiences.

While cultural competency takes time and effort, with practice, your organization can provide care to your patients with their beliefs, culture, and values in mind.

Here are just a few ways providers can practice cultural competency through telehealth:

  1. Don’t make assumptions. When it comes to telehealth, not everyone knows how to use technology. So, being patient and adaptable can make a huge difference in offering competent care as a provider. Furthermore, mental health is stigmatized in many communities. Stigma often comes from a lack of understanding or fear, so it is important to be patient, not assume that everyone knows about mental illnesses, and be open to teaching.
  2. Have concise and thorough explanations. English is not everyone’s first language, and language accessibility is critical. By keeping answers simple and easy to understand, people can better understand their course of treatment. Long explanations can take away from adequately diagnosing or treating people. In some cases, providing professional interpreting services or hiring bilingual staff as medical interpreters can help to navigate complex conversations.
  3. Withhold judgments. Shared-decision making is standard in other cultures, like big decisions related to a family member’s health. Along with shared decision making, when a patient makes a choice about their health, try to respect it. When patients understand their options and course of action for their health and want to go another route that is aligned with their culture, respect is essential. In addition, many cultures may use alternative treatment instead of relying on Western medicine. By making an effort to understand a patient’s traditional health beliefs and practices, explaining their course of treatment can be more manageable.
  4. Accommodate and educate. Teach patients about techniques or technologies and find culturally accommodating alternatives when possible. For example, some people will not know how to use laptops or computers with ease. Teaching them and being patient can mitigate some discomfort. Always ask about their preference before accommodating.
  5. Be aware of cultural differences. Through telehealth, non-verbal communication can play a prominent role. Make sure that the use of gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions are appropriate and respectful within your patient’s culture. It’s okay to ask!

How organizations can accommodate

Providing culturally competent care for your patient population can become a reality by institutionalizing changes at your organization. Here are a few ways your organization can help your providers deliver culturally competent care and accommodate the needs of your patient populations:

  1. Be intentional about recruitment. Ideally, an organization’s staff should be at least as diverse and multicultural as your patient populations to help provide appropriate care. With a diverse team of providers, your practice will have a more comprehensive cultural knowledge base to pull from when it comes time to provide care.
  2. Collect REAL data. According to the AHA, organizations should collect race, ethnicity, and language preference (REAL) data. Collecting this data will help your organization identify and report disparities, increase diversity and minority workforce pipelines, and make cultural competency an institutional priority.
  3. Offer training and resources. Make sure you give your providers ample time and resources around culturally competent care. Remember to encourage your providers to take some time to develop skills and knowledge to effectively navigate an industry that works with people of many backgrounds.
  4. Assess and address. Your organization and providers will not become perfect at providing culturally competent care overnight. It’ll be vital to identify and address areas of underperformance on an ongoing basis through your organization’s REAL data and feedback from your patients and providers.

Resources for providers and looking towards the future

As a provider, learning about cultural competency can feel overwhelming, and knowing where to start might feel confusing. By taking steps to improve your cultural competency, you will be better equipped to serve the needs of a variety of patients from different backgrounds.
Here are a few resources and ways that can help you practice and advocate for cultural competence in the workplace:

  1. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) Resources on Cultural Competence: SAMHSA has resources and online training for providing cultural competency for both organization leaders and providers.
  2. The Health Research and Educational Trust and the American Hospital Association (AHA): This guidebook has resources for healthcare organizations and leadership. It outlines multiple benefits of culturally competent care, next steps for hospitals and care systems, and how to provide effective staff education.
  3. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ): The AHRQ has their Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit on improving linguistic competency when delivering health care. The toolkit gives information about how to learn from patients, from other staff, and other sources like websites and courses. It also gives guidance on how to track your progress among your providers.
  4. Think Cultural Health: This website has resources, CME, and information for providers about culturally and linguistically appropriate care services. The website is sponsored by The Office of Minority Health (OMH) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Where Iris Telehealth can help

At Iris Telehealth, we work with other healthcare organizations around the nation to bring high-quality, specialized psychiatry services to people who need them the most. Contact us today to see if our telepsychiatry services can help your providers and organization provide culturally competent care for your patients.

Clinician Corner: Meet Nicole Bradbury, LCSW

Iris clinicians are at the heart of what makes our organization such a special place to work. That’s why we’re turning the spotlight on the amazing work they’re doing every day. This month, we’re sitting down to talk with Nicole Bradbury.

Q: How did you find Iris and decide you wanted to be an Iris provider?

A: There were a few things that made me decide I wanted to be an Iris provider. First, because of COVID, I realized that I enjoyed working from home. Additionally, I had just moved to San Antonio, and the traffic can get pretty busy during rush hour. Because of that, I was really open to telehealth. I looked through the Iris values and saw that a lot of employee reviews were positive, and people noted things like “lots of support” and “good working environments.” Since working here, I’ve definitely seen that as well.

During the interview process, I worked with Erin Schepman, the Manager of Clinical Talent, and she made everything super nice and relaxing. Then once I was hired, they were able to get me matched to an organization pretty quickly.

Q: What does a typical day as an Iris Telehealth provider look like for you?

A: I am a clinician for an agency in Arizona. I primarily work with children and families with mental illness and occasionally some adults. My typical day can vary depending on what I have scheduled. I’m still waiting to get my license, so right now, I help the clinical director with organization and help support the other therapists while we’re waiting to get more kids on my caseload. Which is actually great because it lets me understand their system better.

Q: What do you love about being a telepsychiatry provider?

A: There are a lot of different benefits to telepsychiatry. For one, I love finding new ways to engage with the kids. I’ve found websites where I can interact with them virtually, like “Let’s play Uno and talk about feelings!” It’s fun to find new ways to explore engaging with the children, especially the younger ones.

It’s also nice that I can step outside with my dogs after a tough session, take a deep breath, and then come back in and prepare for the next session without seeing patients back to back. I can take five minutes and breathe. I think that’s a big benefit, especially because the burnout rates in the field can be so high. Telepsychiatry offers a lot of opportunities for self-care.

Q: How do you foster connection with patients virtually?

A: I try to find different ways to connect with my patients. For many kids, it’s just being there, listening. But, for the younger ones or those who don’t want to be in therapy, I try to find games for us to play, or I ask them what they like to do and what they like about it.

I think COVID has helped the kids get a lot more comfortable with technology – they can log into Zoom on their own quickly. But some kids are not ideal for telehealth because some of them are way too active to where they might need in-person or play therapy. However, a lot of the older kids engage really well.

Q: As a healthcare professional, how do you manage work-life balance?

A: One of the main things I learned from doing telehealth during COVID was having a space for work. I have a dedicated space for work, so when I step out of the room, away from my computer, I’m just focused on home and life.

Q: What are your biggest learnings from your time at Iris?

A: I feel like I’m constantly learning something new. For example, one thing I’ve learned is that in-person care and telehealth offer the same benefits. You can still build the same connection and rapport whether it’s telehealth or in-person. In my own experience, telehealth is just as effective as in-person, and I’m sure studies show that as well.

One thing I’m really appreciative of with Iris is that they placed me in an agency with an amazing supervisor. So, not only is there support from Iris, but there’s support from my supervisor at the agency I’m providing services to. So, it’s a great fit and I feel that I’m valued at both organizations. I’m very appreciative of that.

Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?

A: One of the most rewarding parts of the job is seeing the progress my patients make and looking at how far they’ve come. You get to be with them on their journeys. It’s also great seeing parents learn and grow just as much as the kids.

There was one kid who gave me a small encouragement. They said, “I was really looking forward to this session!” I was like, “Really? You’re looking forward to therapy? Okay!” So sometimes, it’s those small moments that help during the more challenging sessions. It’s a great feeling to be there through the hard times and then see them rejoice when they get through the valleys.

Q: Why do you think telepsychiatry is important to the future of mental healthcare?

A: Telepsychiatry provides certain flexibility and helps reach those who may experience difficulty with access. For example, a lot of kids are busy after school. However, if they get home before their parents, they can hop on Zoom, so their parents don’t have to take off work and drive. Telepsychiatry is super beneficial, and it’s going to help parents and kids with time management.

Q: What do you love about working with Iris?

A: One of the things I love about working with Iris is the support. For example, Drew Sadler, the Clinician Operations Manager, has provided amazing support and the IT team is always ready to help. I also love knowing that there are opportunities to get funds for CEUs, so if there’s a certain training I want, I can take a class. Other pluses are office supplies, getting a desk, and getting a chair. Before I got here, I didn’t have those things, but Iris was there to help me get set up.

I’ve also really appreciated the help Iris has provided with licensing. Licensing has been a hassle and without Iris, I wouldn’t have made it. I don’t know that I would have known all the steps to take or if I would have been as proactive. I would have been lost without their help.

At Iris, we believe our providers should be respected, valued, and applauded for the work they do, and we couldn’t be more proud to say, “thank you” to our very own Nicole Bradbury. If you’d like to learn more about working for Iris Telehealth, contact us today.