Headway Provider Portal: How Therapists Can Deliver Virtual Mental Health Care

Understanding the Headway Provider Portal

In recent years, telehealth has become an increasingly popular way for people to access therapy, psychiatry, and other mental health services from the comfort of home. One company at the forefront of this trend is Headway, an online platform that connects patients with licensed providers for virtual sessions. For therapists and other clinicians looking to offer their services through Headway, understanding how to use the Headway provider portal is key.

What is Headway?

Founded in 2020, Headway aims to make quality mental healthcare more accessible and affordable through virtual care. The company works directly with health insurance providers to allow patients to use their coverage for online therapy and psychiatry appointments. This helps remove many barriers to mental health treatment, including high costs, limited provider availability, and the need to take time off work or other obligations to attend in-person sessions.

Headway screens and credentials all providers on its platform, so patients are assured they are seeing licensed, experienced professionals. The company currently has over 2,000 providers in their network spanning all 50 states.

Benefits of the Headway Provider Platform

For mental health professionals, partnering with Headway as a provider offers several advantages:

• Access to more patients with insurance coverage - Headway has direct contracts with major insurance companies like Aetna, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare. This gives providers access to an expanded patient pool, many of whom have at least partial coverage for virtual sessions.
• Increased flexibility - Providers can conduct sessions from home or any private location, setting their own availability without needing to rent office space.
• Practice management support - Headway handles administrative tasks like intake, claims and billing, scheduling, and more to allow providers to focus on delivering care.
• Opportunity to scale your practice - Virtual sessions allow providers to see patients anywhere in their state, supporting increased case load and revenues.

Getting Started on the Headway Provider Portal

Signing up to become a provider with Headway involves a few key steps:

1. Create an account - Go to the Headway website and click "Apply Now" to begin setting up your provider profile. You'll need to create a username and password.
2. Complete your profile - Submit important details like your contact info, credentials, licenses, specializations, demographics, and availability. This helps match you with appropriate patients.
3. Apply and get approved - Headway will verify your licensure, education, credentials, and insurance status. Once approved, you're ready to start seeing patients.
4. Set up billing - Provide your national provider identifier number, tax info, and banking details to facilitate payment processing.

Key Features of the Provider Portal

Once enrolled, providers can log into Headway's portal to access important tools and features:

• Scheduling and availability - Set your weekly availability so new patients can book appointments. View, modify or cancel upcoming sessions.
• Charting - Document notes from visits directly in the portal for each patient to store progress reports securely.
• Claims and billing - Submit claims for reimbursement. Track pending and paid claims and payments made to your account.
• Messaging - Communicate with patients through a HIPAA-compliant messaging system within the portal.
• Resources - Access training materials, guidelines, forms and more to support your virtual practice.
• Support - Get assistance from Headway's provider experience team via live chat, email or phone.

Delivering Virtual Care Through the Platform

Headway offers a streamlined system for conducting secure video sessions with patients right in their provider portal:

1. Patients select an available time slot on your calendar to book an appointment.
2. You receive a notification of the booking and can confirm the session details.
3. At the scheduled time, log into the portal and click the "Start Session" button to initiate the video call.
4. Conduct the secure live video session, which is fully encrypted to protect privacy.
5. End the call when finished. Sessions are billed according to the duration of time.

Headway also has features that support text-based channels of care like chat messaging or asynchronous messaging. This allows providers to communicate with patients in between live video appointments as well.

Getting Paid Through Headway

One major benefit of working with Headway is the seamless claims and billing process that handles reimbursement:

• Claims are automatically submitted to the patient's insurer on your behalf after each completed session.
• Headway follows up as needed for any additional information required to process the claim.
• After the insurance company pays the claim, Headway deposits your share of the payment (less their platform fee) directly into your designated bank account.
• Timely payment means you don't have to wait 30-90 days typical of traditional practices to get paid.

This reimbursement model allows providers to focus on delivering quality care rather than administrative burdens.

Getting Support from Headway

Headway aims to make providers successful on their platform and offers robust assistance:

• Onboarding - Headway provides training on effectively charting, coding, security protocols, and best practices for virtual care.
• Ongoing training - Access webinars, an online knowledge center, networking events and mentorship opportunities.
• Tech support - Get help from their provider experience team via live chat, email or phone if any issues arise.
• Clinical resources - Download templates, assessment tools, psychoeducation materials and more from the portal library.

Their provider success team is available 7 days a week to ensure a smooth experience.

A Rewarding Opportunity for Virtual Care

In summary, the Headway provider portal is the gateway for mental health professionals to deliver easily accessible, insurance-covered virtual care. Signing up for an account allows you to manage scheduling, charting, billing and more for a seamless telehealth practice. With demand for online services surging, partnering with Headway presents a rewarding opportunity to scale your impact while benefiting from strong practice support.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. Always consult with a healthcare professional before starting any new treatment regimen.