Want to reduce the wait time in your college counseling center, widen access and availability to mental health services, and track the progress of students in care? Working with a telehealth provider can help reduce clinical burden, support high demand, and enable greater flexibility for students, many of whom are working part-time, parenting, or playing a sport, which prevents them from utilizing counseling services during regular business hours.

The best telehealth provider will act as an extension to your college counseling center, working closely with your clinical staff to identify pain points, fill gaps in care, and meet students where they are in their mental health journey. When working with a telehealth provider, you want to make sure your campus and student needs are met, you maintain regular communication with the telehealth providers, and you’re receiving real-time updates so you can close the loop on referrals and monitor the outcomes of students in care.

Here’s what you can do to establish a mutually-beneficial, collaborative relationship with telehealth providers:

• Align on a Shared Vision: Before choosing a telehealth provider, have a conversation around your short- and long-term goals, what you hope to achieve with this partnership, and how you will work together to make this happen. What does success look like to you? How will you track student mental health outcomes? How will you respond in a crisis situation? When it comes to student mental health, you have to follow the same protocols, no matter if you’re providing in-person or telehealth care.
• Set Clear Expectations: Before onboarding telehealth providers, consider how you plan to work with them and how you’d like them to work with your students. Will you refer students with minor forms of anxiety or depression? Will you refer students with higher acuity? Once you have a good idea of what you expect, then you can move forward with defining the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder

“As a former counseling services director, I found that having clear expectations and guidelines surrounding the referral process to your telehealth provider helped increase the confidence in the referral for the student, and ensured that the student would remain in care versus being referred once more.” – Liz Jodoin, PhD, LPC, LCMHCS, former counseling services director

• Telehealth Providers into the Campus Environment: A telehealth provider should be onboarded in much the same way as a counseling center employee. Introduce the  telehealth provider to fellow clinicians. Keep them informed of campus happenings. Share staff meeting minutes, annual reports, student satisfaction survey results, policies and procedures, and campus calendars. Trust is critical to building a successful partnership and you want to feel confident referring your students and to these providers.
• Prioritize Student Needs: How does a telehealth provider approach student mental health? Do they understand the value of whole person care? Are they aware of the issues facing young adults today? Can they work with diverse student populations? College counseling centers are responsible for the health and safety of students, so they must take student needs into account when working with telehealth providers. One of the benefits of working with a telehealth provider is that they can track student satisfaction, showing how satisfied a student is with their virtual care.
• Maintain Up-to-Date Mental Health Resources: Ensuring students can access relevant mental health resources on campus will help promote success among those receiving telehealth care. While your telehealth provider does offer robust counseling, students still need a dependable community support network as they work toward maintenance and/or recovery.
• Establish Open Lines of Communication: When building a successful working relationship with your telehealth provider, communication is key. You need to ensure that a telehealth provider can provide real-time reporting so your on-campus counseling team is  informed of any changes, updates, or concerns around patient conditions.. In addition to working in a shared platform – with shared note-taking – you can also plan routine calls with your telehealth provider to ask questions, share concerns, and brainstorm solutions.

“I’m a big believer in redundancy and having a Plan B,” says Dr. Jodoin. “Many times, counseling staff at leadership levels are granted administrative access to Electronic Health Record systems. While managing permissions is very important for the safety of patient data, consider what your center’s plan is when leadership is on vacation or away from the office. How will staff collaborate and communicate with your telehealth providers?”

When fostering a relationship with telehealth providers, make sure the partnership fits the needs of your center. Let your telehealth provider know how often you’d like to connect, what expectations you have, and what adjustments need to be made. You may decide upon weekly reports and monthly check-in calls, but feel this cadence isn’t working – let the telehealth provider know so you can make adjustments to better suit your center’s needs.

About Mantra Health:

At Mantra Health, we are dedicated to supporting college counseling centers through expanded service offerings. Our team of highly trained, in-house providers come alongside counseling center directors to provide students with therapy, psychiatry, and crisis support via telehealth. We give on-campus providers easy access to patient notes and histories through our collaborative platform, ensuring they are fully aware of student diagnoses, treatments, and outcomes.

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