Cerebral Review: Is this Online Therapy Legit?

Easily accessible mental health care is important. It’s a fully recognized civil right in the United States. But the higher costs and the associated taboo surrounding mental illnesses discourage a lot of patients from asking for help.

The entry of telehealth and digital therapy services into the mental healthcare scene was a total game-changer. These services brought a glimmer of hope inspiring many to proactively seek mental therapy. Rightly so, this is the first step toward improving well-being.

Is Cerebral Online Therapy Legit?

Cerebral is also part of the mental healthcare ecosystem. The platform was created by Kyle Robertson in January 2020 to provide easily accessible, on-demand, affordable mental healthcare. Cerebral USP is effective treatments based on pure science and evidence.

However, the company is currently undergoing scrutiny by the US Department of Justice for overprescribing stimulants such as Xanax and Adderall to its patients. Cerebral privacy policy was also questioned in this investigation.

The company was at the center of public attention after the unethical medical practices were revealed by Matthew Truebe, a former employee of the company. Matthew filed a lawsuit against Cerebral in California State Court.

Historically, Cerebral has had a clean record with over 4000 reviews on TrustPilot and an overall 4.6-star rating on the Apple app. The platform’s outcome-oriented approach with effective medication management at very affordable rates was well received.

However, recently, the company’s well-established reputation was damaged after it was subjected to scandalizing allegations.

Recent Developments at Cerebral

Cerebral has garnered a lot of negative publicity for unfair medical, marketing, and advertising practices.

In March 2023, it was revealed that the company was involved in selling the personal information of its customers to social media companies such as Tik Tok and Facebook.

Cerebral was also accused of compromising the confidentiality of their patients by tracking sensitive data through the app and the website.

The company now claims that it has stopped its unethical medical practices. But we would not recommend opting for prescription-based psychiatric treatment at Cerebral, while the investigations are on.

You can still use the platform for talk therapy to help you cope with your mental and emotional troubles.

So, let’s dive into a comprehensive review of Cerebral.

About Cerebral

Cerebral is a digital mental therapy platform that provides remote services to manage your anxiety, depression, insomnia, and many other issues.

The platform also has a network of board-certified physicians, therapists, nurse practitioners as well as physician assistants for diagnosing, treating, and managing your prescriptions.

The company offers anytime, anywhere e-counseling and psychiatric treatment to all those who want to embark on a wellness therapy journey for better mental and emotional well-being.

Cerebral Review

Now that you have known brief information about this online therapy platform’s working culture, in this review, we will breakdown the entire details for a microscopic understanding of whether it is legit for you and you need to take help from this platform.

1. How It Works?

It is quite simple to get started with mental therapy on Cerebral. There are three steps involved. To ensure your care team gets a complete idea of your medical history, the first step requires you to take a short online assessment.

Once you complete the questionnaire, you can get on a video call or a phone call to discuss your therapy requirements in detail. The care team then creates a highly personalized treatment plan for you based on your call with them and the evaluated assessment.

Finally, if you are required to take medication for a more severe mental illness, the care team even manages your prescription. The prescribed medication is neatly packed and delivered to you, on a monthly basis.

Also, your care team is responsible for staying in touch with you at all times so you are on track with your pre-set mental wellness goals.

In case you are not completely satisfied with the assigned care team initially matched with you, you can get them changed manually by speaking to the Cerebral support team.

You can switch your counselor with a single click. Cerebral customer care provides you with a link to modify your therapist free of charge. However, there is no option to automate this or get this done directly via the app or the platform.

Cerebral is flexible enough to let you cancel or reschedule your appointments three hours prior to the actual scheduled time. But in case you reschedule too late or fail to attend the session for any reason, you will still be charged for that appointment irrespective of your absence or inability to show up.

The good part is that you can cancel your subscription if you do not wish to continue with Cerebral. The platform does not charge any cancellation fee.

Here are the conditions effectively treated by Cerebral via evidence-based approaches:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Insomnia
• ADHD in a few states
• Bipolar Disorder in a few states
• Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) in a few states 
• Several other mental health problems such as PTSD, Postpartum depression, menopausal depression, etc.

Moreover, Cerebral can also provide therapy for customers to cope with:

• Stress, anger, loss, and grief
• Trauma and relationship problems
• Phobias and low confidence or self-esteem
• LGBTQI+ issues

2. Cost/Affordability: Services Offered & Conditions Treated by Cerebral

The platform offers a network of certified mental health professionals for both mental therapy and psychiatric prescription-based treatment. This involves talk therapy in which you are allowed to meet your counselor four times a month.

Cerebral also has a group of licensed nurse practitioners. These nurses have the expertise in diagnosing and treating severe mental illnesses with customized plans and prescription drugs.

You can even connect with your nurse practitioners for routine follow-ups. This will ensure your progress is appropriately evaluated and the medications are modified as necessary. It operates similarly to regular in-person consultations with your doctor but over the phone or the internet.

If your mental illness demands a combination treatment that should include both therapy and medication management, Cerebral got you covered. It provides another plan that claims to have the maximum clinical benefit and effectiveness.

The platform helps you easily collaborate with certified prescribers and mental therapy specialists. The prescriber handles the medication bit while the therapist counsels you to adopt healthy behaviors to help you boost your emotional well-being.

This is how Cerebral membership plans are structured and priced:

Mental Health Therapy Only	Therapy and Medication Management
This plan originally costs $295 per month but since there is a 50% discount offer going on currently, you can get the plan for $145 per month (cost eligible only for the first month)	This plan originally costs $365 per month but since there is a 50% discount offer going on currently, you can get the plan for $175 per month (cost eligible only for the first month)
You will be charged on a monthly basis	You will be charged on a monthly basis
Cerebral picks the right therapist for you based on your needs	Cerebral picks the right therapist for you based on your needs, as well as a medical prescriber for effective mental illness diagnosis and long-term prescription-based treatment
Comprehensive talk therapy weekly sessions via phone or video calls	Comprehensive talk therapy weekly sessions via phone or video calls, including appropriate medication management handled by the experts at Cerebral
Continuous personalized care plan provided by the assigned care team	Continuous personalized care plan provided by the assigned care team
Not applicable as this plan does not include the services of a medical prescriber	You can schedule follow-up appointments with your medical prescriber via phone or video calls
In-app convenient & easy appointment booking, progress tracking, messaging and mental wellness resources available	In-app convenient & easy appointment booking, progress tracking, messaging, and mental wellness resources available
FSA/HSA cards accepted for payment	FSA/HSA cards accepted for payment

Note – Cerebral does not charge you shipping costs for home delivery of your prescription medicines. The prescription is also emailed to you on a monthly basis.

The platform also has a referral program called Refer a Friend. You can participate to help your friends save a bit more (70%  OFF their first month) on mental therapy services through this program.

You can make $50 in exchange for every referral or promotion to eventually earn up to $300 in a month.

Please note, there are some conditions if you want to receive the benefit of this referral program:

1. You must be a paid subscriber of Cerebral with an active account to be eligible to receive the referral credit 
2. You are eligible for a maximum of six referrals
3. Your friends should be 18 years old or older and must be residents of the United States
4. You are not eligible to get the benefits of this program if you are already covered by Medicaid, Medicare or any other federal or state insurance plans

3. Insurance Coverage

This is probably one of the main advantages of opting for services at Cerebral. Your treatment is fully covered by insurance. This makes mental healthcare on the platform truly inexpensive and accessible.

The company has collaborated with multiple insurance providers to help you bring down your treatment costs.

You need to take a quick eligibility test in order to find your insurance company in the Cerebral partner list, based on the state you live in. To get the big picture, you can also estimate your cost per visit according to your insurance plan.

Irrespective of the plan you choose, you are required to pay a $30 monthly subscription fee not covered by insurance. This is your Cerebral platform access fee. Your total treatment cost will differ based on your insurance plan, the treatment you select, and your deductible amount.

You can utilize your insurance coverage for both visits as well as prescriptions. However, prescriptions will be billed separately and are different from copays per visit.

Also, you might be needed to pay around $25 to $30 per appointment as a small portion of your visit cost. This too depends on your deductible. The higher the deductible plan, the higher the cost-share responsibility you would have.

To give you more clarity, these are some of the insurance companies that have partnered with Cerebral:

• Anthem
• Blue Cross Blue Shield
• Blue Shield
• Cigna
• Magellan Health

4. Accessibility

Cerebral is one of the most accessible and highly flexible providers.

Apart from this, the platform’s website and the app perform quite well for differently-abled customers on the usability front. Cerebral is consistently striving to further improve the accessibility of its platform according to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Level AA.

All the plans provided by Cerebral are available across all states in the US including the state of Washington D.C. If you have signed up for prescription-based medication service, your prescriber will have to be certified in the state you reside in.

Note – Cerebral’s network of prescription providers is only licensed to issue or prescribe mental illness medicines in the United States.

Similarly, the therapists in the Cerebral team are also licensed to provide counseling services only in the United States.

Please note – In case you are struggling to get rid of your dependence on alcohol, Cerebral offers both therapy and medication in the following states ONLY:

There are 36 States in the List as of Now – Alabama, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

The alcohol dependence treatment involves medication such as naltrexone, disulfiram, and acamprosate, etc.

5. Privacy & Transparency

Understanding the privacy policy of Cerebral is a catch-22 situation. But there are definitely concerns hovering around the company about the clauses that explicitly mention sharing or selling of patients’ personal information to third-party providers, affiliates, and partner companies for business profits.

Cerebral’s notice of privacy practices mentions that your PHI (Protected Health Information) may be used and revealed for business purposes, payment-related issues, or for any other reason deemed necessary by law.

There is not sufficient clarity on how the information of clients is being used or will be used in the future, which affects the credibility of the company to an extent. The extensively explained privacy policies of Cerebral on the website are just too confusing to understand for a layperson.

Also, based on the current scandal, it might be hard to trust Cerebral since the company does not offer full protection of sensitive patient data.

It also says that the platform and its associated Medical Groups, their providers, the pharmacies or the labs are not entirely compliant with HIPAA.

In light of the recent controversy, the FAQ section of the website might have been revised. Cerebral’s website now mentions that stimulants such as Adderall (amphetamine/dextroamphetamine) and Concerta (Methylphenidate) are not prescribed for ADHD anymore. They claim to treat ADHD with non-stimulants such as Wellbutrin or Strattera.

Going by the news reports and the buzz on social media, there happens to be a lack of transparency at Cerebral end.

The former executives have accused the company of pressuring their physicians for overprescribing Adderall and similar substances to their patients suffering from ADHD. But there is no clear evidence yet since it is still an ongoing case.

6. Pros and Cons of Cerebral

Who Should Seek Help at Cerebral?

All adults over 18 years old, experiencing severe mental health illnesses are ideal candidates for Cerebral. You are the ideal person to opt for Cerebral plans if you are looking for long-term treatment with routine care via prescriptions, and regular follow-ups.

Also, if you wish to find the root cause of your mental or emotional health problems to deal with them in a better way, Cerebral’s therapy plan could be the right solution for you.

How Does Cerebral Stack Up Against its Competitors?

An investigation of your business practices is the last thing any therapy or medication management organization would want.

This makes Cerebral a weak player in the mental healthcare industry, compared to its competitors such as Talkspace, Brightside, MediTelecare, MAP Health Management, and Teladoc.

Most customers liked the services of the competitor platforms better. Moreover, the safety of Cerebral remains quite dicey. It has been in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. If cost is an issue, Cerebral is cheaper than Talkspace and Brightside.

You are only eligible to seek therapy and mental illness treatments at Cerebral if you are 18 years old and above. This platform is strictly available to adults in the United States.

Cerebral in Another Controversy

This news piece could be a deal-breaker for many.

With reference to a report by the Wall Street Journal in September 2022, Cerebral was held responsible for a teenager’s death after the platform failed to recognize the minor. He signed up for their plan by passing himself off as an adult, without the consent of his parents.

17-year-old Anthony Kroll, from Missouri suffered from intense suicidal thoughts. He was allegedly given an antidepressant that was potentially dangerous for teenagers.

The company was held responsible for Anthony’s suicide. And was accused of ignoring all the red flags. Despite the warning signs, it continued to make profits by deliberately not informing the boy’s legal guardians about it.

Here’s the complete news report – Cerebral Treated a 17-Year-Old Without His Parents’ Consent. They Found Out the Day He Died. – WSJ.

Final Verdict: Should you Opt for Therapy at Cerebral?

Cerebral is under fire from all sides for its underhand business and prescription practices. This is a good enough reason for us to not recommend the platform for mental healthcare.

It is a legit platform for online mental therapy. But there are many better companies out there following ethical medical and business practices. You can consult them for your remote counseling needs.

The pros of Cerebral are incredible and could be too many to ignore. But the cons are quite unsettling and raise far too many questions.

So, it goes without saying that in the current scheme of things, we would not support Cerebral. The platform is an absolute no-no, especially for severe psychiatric disorders requiring extensive prescription-based treatments.