The Pandemic Has Almost Instantly Created A New Demand For Worldwide Psychology Services

Including Psycho-Educational, Lifestyle Coaching and Clinical Tele-Psychology Services

Tele-Psychology, often lumped together with other medical specialties and called “Tele-health” or “Tele-medicine,” is the ability for licensed health care professionals to provide clinical services covered by a patient’s health insurance to some one who is seeking a consultation or treatment by phone, internet or audio visual means rather than by traveling to the doctor’s office to receive their health care.

For decades, licensing laws and insurance regulations mandated that all such “office visits” be conducted face-to-face in the hospital or doctor’s office. Insurers and government regulations refused to budge on this issue.

Then the Pandemic happened. And in a matter of weeks, all those prohibitions evaporated and “remote” health care office visits, now dubbed “Tele-medicine,” or Tele-Psychology” became the preferred method of providing and receiving health care, fully approved and even recommended by governments and health insurers. For simplicity’s sake, all such visits, no matter what the clinical care, were now considered “Tele-Health.” It has been a long and torturous undertaking to convince insurers to pay for “office visits” between patient and doctor by remote means.

“Distance Learning,” long available to college and adult learners, was rejected as a model for responsible health care, but that is what the Pandemic has caused to happen. TeleHealth is simply “Distance Health Care” and your insurance will cover it – as long as the Pandemic lasts, anyway. After that? Who knows. Some insurance companies have already announced that the change is permanent and that change is a strong benefit to patients every where – from folks who do not live near a qualified health care provider to those who have mobility isues and trouble getting to their provider’s office easily.

The profession of Clinical Psychology has the strictest licensing laws of any profession. Similar to other licensed professionals, there are barriers restricting licensed psychologists in any one state from routinely providing clinical psychology services to patients in any other state where the psychologist is not fully licensed. There are some exceptions, however, here in the United States and in other countries where American citizens have re-located, either due to retirement or job obligations.

The new Tele-Health regulations now permit Vista Health Services, Inc. to provide clinical psychological health care services to children, adolescents, families and seniors in many areas located far from our home office in Massachusetts. If you would like to inquire about receiving such services, please contact our office for more information. Restrictions apply, depending on where you are located, either in North America or Overseas in any of the continents.

In addition to licensing laws, however, are insurance regulations. All major health insurers, including Medicare, have long insisted that medical benefits and payments may only be provided when the patient is having a face-to-face meeting in the health care provider’s office. That prohibited all patients from “visiting” their preferred health care provider over the internet or by phone and accessing the health care benefits of their health insurance.

Therapy for Expats and Overseas Transfers

Many US citizens have been unable to travel back to the USA since the Pandemic. Many others have been transferred overseas due to business promotions or retirement. Many of these “expatriated” citizens have no access to quality native English speaking, USA based Psychology services to help deal with the resultant depression, anxiety, isolation, cultural adjustment, marital and family stress and social acceptance issues often confronting transferred workers or their family members. We can help.

We offer state of the art Cognitive Behavioral Psychology services in a Positive Psychology framework to expatriates and their families located in various countries around the world. These services include assessments, school & college based services, coaching, psycho-edcational, and clinical psychology services. These include some of the services that licensed professionals draw upon to provide “mental Health services” to patients in the USA and abroad, but not all services are “Clinical Psychology” services.

Our services are available to all people, including retirees, students attending international schools and colleges and those working for NGOs and multi-national corporations. All services are confidential and we provide our remote consultations by means of secure audio and visual links, available seven days a week, during local hours in your location.

In addition to services for individuals and families, all the additional educational trainings that we offer in the USA, including in-service trainings, school, college and parent workshops and consultations to Executive and C-Level teams, can also be provided to overseas clients. Please contact our office for further details.