Laura Groshong, LICSW, CSWA Director of Policy and Practice

CareDash, BetterHelp, and CSWA

CSWA has been carefully tracking the way that CareDash and BetterHelp were trying to undermine private practice LCSWs by directing prospective patients to their lists of clinicians. For more background, go to https://www.clinicalsocialworkassociation.org/Legislative-Alerts/12868204 .

Due to an overwhelming response from CSWA members and other groups, the most egregious practices have been stopped.  There is still more work to do, but here is where things stand.

On August 4, BetterHelp issued a statement which said that they were ending their connection to CareDash. On August 6, CareDash announced that they were backing off their harmful stance toward clinical social workers in private practice as well. While there are still some problems to be resolved, CareDash has 1) stopped their deliberate confusion about LCSW availability; 2) removed their “book an appointment” option, which directed potential patients away from LCSWs who were not part of the CareDash network; and 3) clarified that their information comes from the NPI list of clinicians and has nothing to do with the quality of those clinicians. To see the whole CareDash statement, click on https://twitter.com/caredash/status/1555658652786348032?s=20&t=0wbvSA8XI46b1egY3gvpjg .  

I am fairly certain that the outstanding response of CSWA members to the demeaning policies of CareDash had a major impact on their decision to back off their original stance. Thanks to all of you for your great contributions to this effort.

CSWA will continue to insist on the rights of all LCSWs in private practice to have access to all patients who want to see them, without interference by any external organizations. Toward that goal, we have created a petition at https://www.ipetitions.com/petition/stop-caredash-and-betterhelps-duplicitous . I encourage everyone to sign and add your comments on the CareDash/BetterHelp process.