Q. How do the fees work?
A. You set your own consultancy fee, as this is your online practice. We do not interfere in any clinical matters between you and your clients nor do we set your fee for service. MyPsych.com will take 25% of your consultancy fee per session.
As this is a consultancy arrangement, you will set your own hourly rate. We will collect the session fees from clients, deduct 25% and forward the rest to you by electronic transfer.
Q. How much does it cost to join Mypsych.com?
A. There will be a small annual charge of $300 AUD. This covers practice management and technology costs and includes free online training, access to over 600 journals via EBSCO. The annual fee also includes practice management services such as marketing and feedback on what works online.
Q. What would be the payment structure for my services?
A. After completing an application to become a consultant psychologist, you will be forwarded an agreement detailing the terms and conditions of the arrangements. You will charge any fee you deem appropriate and you will be able to change this whenever you feel it is necessary. MyPsych.com will collect fees prior to the session with the client at the time of booking and we will remit 75% of the fee to you.
Q. How can I ensure the client pays for their session?
A. The payment gateway PayPal is built into our site so that the client pays in advance of booking a session with you.
Q. How does payment come to me, via client or MyPsych.com?
A. Payment is transmitted to you by Psychology Onsite Pty Ltd (which owns MyPsych.com) according to the terms of the contract. It will be deposited to your account after the 25% is deducted.
Q. What happens if the client is a "no show"?
A. If the client is a no show they forfeit the fee. If the psychologist is a no-show the client receives a full refund.
Q. Can I update my hourly rate?
A. Mypsych.com (Psychology Onsite Pty Ltd.) will never alter the psychologists' hourly rate. That is up to each individual psychologist.
Q. Is the annual fee a fixed fee or is it likely to change?
A. The annual fee may be altered from time to time in line with any cost increases in practice management. Probably tied to CPI. However, we will endeavour to keep this fee at the lowest possible rate and will give fair warning if we intend to alter it.
Q. When is the annual fee due?
A. The annual fee will be due 1 July 2009. The fee will be charged at sign up if you join after 1 July 2009.
Q. Do I need Insurance?
A. Yes, you should have your own professional indemnity insurance.
Q. What is the GST rate in NSW and how would that work with me being in NZ?
A. We are currently waiting for a ruling from the tax office on this issue.
Q. Can I work for Mypsych.com part-time? How many hours am I required to work?
A. Time commitment is absolutely flexible. You can decide how many hours you would like to work, from as little as one consultancy a week to 20 or more consultancies per week.
Q. Why can't I fill out my contract online?
A. You will need to print out the full contract and fill it in manually because we need your signature. Then you can scan it and email it or post it to us.
Q. Is there any training provided for MyPsych.com psychologists?
A. Some online training modules for psychologists can be found under the Resources tab. These were created as classroom presentations so that you can work through it and refer back to it in your own time. We will keep a steady stream of training modules on the site to meet our psychologists' needs and we aim to get APS accreditation for Australian psychologists for their professional development requirements.
Live online group training will also be provided in the near future.
Under the Resources tab, you will also find the access point to the EBSCO online journals. Your subscription is free with your annual fee. A search of online therapy will yield a number of clinical articles on the subject.
Q. What are the opportunities for professional supervision?
A. We will have a list of supervisors on the site and the transcript of the session will be available to psychologists so that they can take it to supervision. We expect all of our psychologists to undertake regular supervision in line with ethical practice standards. We will expand the list of supervisors as they become available to us.
Q. Can MyPsych.com guarantee clients?
A. We are confident that it is a large and growing market according to our research, and that we are amongst the first to provide such an excellent clinical tool.
Our Marketing and communications team are working hard to ensure that you all have a profitable online practice in record time. Over the next few months planned marketing, advertising and publicity campaigns will be targeted to capture as much of this emerging market as possible. Because MyPsych.com is a global site we are confident that psychologists will be able to build busy practices online effortlessly. We are dedicated to helping you achieve your goals by building client numbers as quickly as possible.
Since clients will be choosing you from your profile, you should take some care constructing it and providing a photograph to make sure you present yourself in the best possible way. We will provide our psychologists with ongoing feedback on what works and what does not work marketing. It should be noted that we are going to be very careful in our presentation of MyPsych.com to the public that we will, at all times, aim to present it only in the most professional and respectful way to both our clients and our psychologists.
Q. How are crisis clients screened out?
A. We have a comprehensive pre-treatment questionnaire, which screens for depression, anxiety, stress, life interference, alcohol, suicidality and psychosis. Training is available on the site for the interpretation and scoring of these inventories. They also provide significant demographic and health care usage data.
Q. Will we be assigned clients from different states, or in the same state? What about the legal obligations, knowledge of crisis services, etc, in other states?
A. The service is an international one and clients provide emergency contact information. Contacting emergency service providers in their locality will be your responsibility if the need arises. We would recommend that you locate their emergency "000" number at the beginning of treatment so that you have it available in the case of emergency.
Q. What are the protocols around clients who have violent family members? There is a measure of control in protecting them in my own rooms, but whose responsibility is it if a client is on-line with me, and her husband suddenly comes home?
A. There are many differences between telephone or Internet interactions with clients and they will need to be handled in line with good clinical practice on a case-by-case basis. Specific questions such as these should be taken up with your supervisor.
Q. Do I have to upload my photo to the site?
A. Psychologists must provide us with adequate proof of identity including two forms of identity as is deemed appropriate in Australia (e.g. drivers licence, passport, birth certificate). We are doing this to minimise any chance of identity fraud. They are also required to upload a current photograph of themselves to the site.
Q. What is the Mypsych.com Forum all about?
A. The Forum is a separate site for our Psychologists only. This is a platform where you can network, question, share and exchange ideas with your Mypsych.com colleagues. You may want to discuss issues surrounding treatment, research you've come across, experiences you're having with online therapy or simply make friends.
Q. Do I need to download any programs or equipment to use live chat?
A. No. In order to achieve the highest level of security, the live chat is built into the site.
Q. How do I know if my computer is compatible for the live chat sessions?
A. Our live chat sessions will work with any computer browser and any bandwidth.
Q. When you say live chat, does that mean that I need a microphone or webcam?
A. No, you do not need to have a webcam or microphone. Live chat is simply typed chat similar to MSN Messenger. At present there is no audio-visual functionality, however we will be adding an audio-visual option through Skype therapy in due course.
Q. How long does each therapy session go for?
Q. How much does a therapy session cost?
A. MyPsych.com's psychologists set their own fees so the cost of therapy may vary. When searching for a psychologist you can choose to search by fee so you can see what each session costs before you choose your therapist.
Q. How do I pay for a therapy session?
A. You must pay for your therapy session in advance. Payment is made by credit card directly on MyPsych.com through our integrated PayPal service.
Q. What if I don't have a credit card?
A. You can still use MyPsych.com services if you do not have a credit card. There is a link to the PayPal site at the point of payment. You just need to sign up for a PayPal account and you can then pay directly from your bank account. We do not accept cheques or money order.
Q. What currency do I use?
A. It is probably best to use your own currency. You can use the currency converter to choose your preferred currency.
Q. Are clients eligible for Medicare rebates or private health insurance?
A. Currently there are no rebates in Australia for online therapy but MyPsych.com are strongly lobbying for this to be included under Medicare and with private insurers.
Q. How to I book an appointment with a therapist?
A. You need to register as a client to log in to the site. You then need to create your profile, choose your psychologist, complete a pre-treatment questionnaire (if it is your first session with this psychologist), book an available time from the psychologist's calendar, and then proceed to the payment page. You cannot proceed to your therapy session unless your payment has been processed. Integration of the PayPal payment system increases the level of security on the site.
Q. How do the therapy sessions work?
A. You will be reminded of your upcoming session via email. A scheduler is run every night to send emails to both psychologist and client saying they have an upcoming session.
10 minutes prior to the session start time, after logging in to the site, you can view the chat window.
For example, if the chat session is scheduled at 4 PM, from 3:50 PM you can view the chat window. At this time, you will not be able to chat even if your counterpart is online. At 4 PM, if both of you are online, the psychologist will have to start the session.
Q. Can I still participate in therapy chat sessions while I am travelling?
A. Yes, you can access MyPsych.com from anywhere in the world as long as you have a computer and Internet access.
Q. Does this service cover children and families?
A. Therapy on MyPsych.com is only available to adults over the age of 18.
Q. Does this service cater for group therapy?
A. At present Group therapy is not available however, in time this functionality will be enabled.
Q. What is the minimum qualification requirement to become a practicing psychologist with Mypsych.com?
A. The minimum requirements to qualify as a practicing psychologist on MyPsych.com are:
- Post-graduate qualifications in psychology (APAC approved 6 year psychology degree or international equivalent)
- Full registration with the relevant psychologist registration board in the MyPsych.com Psychologist's jurisdiction
- Current professional indemnity insurance
In order to verify that the psychologists on MyPsych.com have adequate clinical training we do not accept Psychologists with a four-year degree.We also do not accept psychologists qualified through internships.
All of our psychologists must provide us with adequate proof of identity including two forms of identity as is deemed appropriate in Australia (e.g. drivers licence, passport, birth certificate). We are doing this to minimise any chance of identity fraud. They are also required to upload a current photograph of themselves to the site.
Q. Can I view the psychologist's qualifications?
A. You can see the qualifications of each psychologist by viewing their profile.
Q. What sort of security is there on MyPsych.com?
A. The security on MyPsych.com is similar to that used on most Internet banking sites. We have built a secure server with VeriSign encryption at the maximum possible level and we have a dedicated server for our system. Almost all functions of the site are built into the site so that clients do not have to leave the security of the logged on area.
Q. How do you ensure client confidentiality is protected?
A. Only your chosen psychologist has access to your personal details as they would if you were seeing them in a physical practice room. Your chat sessions are completely private, only you and your psychologist are able to view this. A transcript of your session is sent to your psychologist but we do not store this information anywhere on the site.
Q. If I miss my session or have my session stall due to an Internet problem do I get a refund?
Q. If there are any problems during my session, whom do I contact?
A. Please contact us at MyPsych.com if you are experiencing any problems with the site at any time. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
If you need to contact us, please email us at info@mypsych.com.
Or
Call us on the following numbers::
| Australia |
+61 |
(02) |
8004 |
1489 |
| New Zealand |
+64 |
(064) |
4889 |
2631 |
| United Kingdom |
+44 |
(020) |
3286 |
6297 |
| South Africa |
+61 |
(02) |
8004 |
1489 |
Q. What do I do if I am unhappy with the psychologist that I have chosen? Can I select a different psychologist?
A. If you are not happy with your psychologist, or their availability does not suit you simply search for and choose a new psychologist. When you choose a new psychologist you will need to complete the pre-treatment questionnaire again.
Q. How do I cancel a session?
A. If you cancel 24 hours in advance you can either reschedule or obtain a refund. Log in to Mypsych.com and go to your Toolbox. All of your sessions are itemised under My Sessions. Simply select the session you wish to cancel and click on the Cancel button. Please refer to our
Cancellation and No-show policy for more information.
Q. What happens if my Psychologist doesn't turn up for the chat session?
A. If your psychologist is more than 15 minutes late for your scheduled chat session, you have the choice of a full refund to your credit card or bank account. Alternatively you can use this as a credit towards another chat session. Please refer to our
Cancellation and No-show policy for more information.
Q. What if I am late for the chat session?
A. If you are more than 15 minutes late for your scheduled chat session, it is regarded as a no-show and your payment is forfeited. Please refer to our
Cancellation and No-show policy for more information.
Q. How do I delete my profile?
