Talkiatry vs Cerebral: Which Online Therapy is Better?

Congratulations on taking the step to better your mental health. It is by no means an easy task because getting started can be a lot more challenging than most people imagine.

However, what makes it even harder is the need to make the initial choice of a mental healthcare platform that works the best for you.

I will be making a detailed comparison of Talkiatry and Cerebral’s services in this article. Let us dive right into the analysis.

About Talkiatry

Robert Krayn and Georgia Gaveras founded Talkiatry. It is headquartered in New York and provides digital mental healthcare/psychiatric services via Talkiatry in New York.

The founder faced difficulties in finding easily accessible and approachable psychiatric care for treating his PTSD, which led to the beginning of Talkiatry.

The platform has licensed, board-certified mental health providers with over 300 psychiatric care professionals. Talkiatry has a smooth interface for patients to consult them and conveniently access mental healthcare via insurance. The platform has collaborated with more than 60 insurance partners to make the services more affordable.

About Cerebral

Cerebral is a virtual mental therapy platform based out of Claymont, Delaware. The platform is designed to provide effective mental healthcare services for addressing issues such as depression, insomnia, anxiety, and more.

Cerebral has an extensive community of board-certified mental health experts, licensed counselors, physicians, physician assistants, and nurse practitioners. These are well-trained to provide correct diagnosis, psychiatric treatments, talk therapy, and medication management.

Talkiatry vs. Cerebral: Details Compared

In this section, I will cover all the important points of distinction between the two mental healthcare platforms.

Let us see how they stack up against each other so you can easily make the right decision for yourself.

1. How Does it Work?

I will take you through the service delivery structure of both platforms in this section.

Talkiatry

Before I signed up, I was provided a list of all treatments available on the platform.

To get started with counseling/psychiatric care on Talkiatry, I was prompted to complete an online assessment that analyzed my symptoms, treatment preferences, and basic medical background in under 10 minutes.

The next step was to pick a psychiatrist or a therapist based on my needs. For psychiatric assistance, I was helped by Talkiatry staff members who helped me connect with the right professionals.

The only con of the initial sign-up process was that the platform asks for many personal details, which I felt was more than necessary.

After email verification, I could chat with my psychiatrist in less than two days, which was quick. We started working together in our comfortable virtual spaces, discussing my symptoms and care plan. The first consultation call lasted for a good 45 minutes, which could be extended to a maximum duration of 60 minutes.

If you are helping someone who is a minor with mental health issues, you will have to share your email with Talkiatry, as you would be the primary point of contact.

Cerebral

Getting started with treatment on Cerebral was a hassle-free process involving three simple steps. The first step is signing up, taking a short mental health quiz, and connecting with a dedicated care team so they know my medical history.

After completing my questionnaire, I could contact the care team via a phone or a video session to communicate my treatment requirements in-depth.

My care team then curated a highly customized plan for me based on my treatment preferences shared in the earlier session and my responses to the assessment done as part of step one. If needed, Medication management is also provided, and the prescribed medication is home-delivered every month.

My care team was quite proactive and helped me regularly check on my treatment progress to ensure I was moving in the right direction. Also, there is no need to follow up to get regular medicines unless the prescription is updated for some reason.

However, the care team switching or counselor switching process seemed like a task to me because it was not automated. I had to manually contact the Cerebral support team to get them changed for free.

Cerebral allowed me to cancel or reschedule my appointments three hours before the scheduled time. But there is a late fee worth of session cost for failing to reschedule, attend a session, or reschedule an appointment much later.

You can cancel using Cerebral’s services anytime. There are no special terms and conditions.

2. Pricing/Affordability

This section covers the pricing plans of Talkiatry and Cerebral, so you know your expenses on mental healthcare and which option is more pocket-friendly.

Talkiatry

Most of my consultations cost less than $40 to $30, which was impressive, given the exorbitant rates of conventional in-person counseling. Unlike most other mental healthcare platforms, Talkiatry follows a pay-per-visit pricing model.

So, I was expected to follow my care team’s treatment plan, including the entire schedule. I made the payment only after my session, and the final cost was based on the insurance I had.

Please remember this excluded my medication and its delivery costs.

The final cost of treatment at Talkiatry will be determined by multiple factors such as:

• the severity of symptoms
• individual treatment preferences
• the session duration
• the state of residence
• the insurance plan specifies – the coinsurance and the deductible amount
• the medications prescribed
• the availability as well as professional experience of the provider

A good rule of thumb is to check if your insurance provider covers OPD charges to get a rough estimate.

Most patients would pay less than $25 per visit. You may expect a few billing issues moving forward, just like I did. Also, make sure you keep regular checks on pending deductible plans because you may end up spending anywhere in the range of $325 to $414 later.

There are payment plans if the account balance is above $250. This is to avoid paying manually every month or every two weeks.

Cerebral

Cerebral, unlike Talkiatry, has three primary subscription-based payment plans.

Therapy

• The talk therapy or counseling costs $295 per month
• I had the option to choose from a wide network of licensed therapists/counselors based on their detailed profiles
• A comprehensive care plan was developed after my initial consultation
• This is an ongoing plan that was tweaked every step of the way based on my progress and treatment outcomes
• I had access to weekly sessions for about 45 minutes, which I could schedule according to my schedule and availability, including nights and weekends

The current offer on the website lets you buy this plan for up to 2 months and save $100

Therapy and Medication

• It’s the most preferred approach and includes holistic, long-term mental healthcare, including psychiatric assistance and medication management.
• The plan costs $365 per month.

The current offer on the website lets you buy this plan by paying a lump sum amount for two months of treatment and save $312

Medication

• This plan lets you consult a mental healthcare practitioner authorized to prescribe appropriate medications based on an in-depth analysis of your mental health issue and the symptoms.
• The plan costs $99 monthly to ensure you make consistent progress and be in constant touch with the provider so your health improvements are monitored effectively.
• The cost includes discreet home delivery of the prescribed medications, and there is also another option to take away the parcel from the nearest pharmacy.

3. Insurance Coverage

In this section, I will talk about whether or not these platforms provide insurance coverage.

Talkiatry

Talkiatry accepts plans from most insurance providers, which is great. However, it does not accept Medicaid and self-payment options.

The platform accepts Cigna, Aetna, Humana, United Healthcare, Blue Cross Shield, and more such carriers to cover your treatments.

I had to complete a short questionnaire to verify my insurance coverage. This way, all my treatment bills were straightaway sent to my insurance provider for billing purposes. The assessment will take little time, so do not skip this to avoid insurance processing errors and billing issues later.

Talkiatry cannot provide insurance coverage if a third party is involved in administering insurance benefits to you. Therefore, I would recommend evaluating your insurance plans and getting an idea of the overall spending in advance.

Cerebral

Cerebral provides full treatment coverage via multiple insurance plans of popular insurance providers. Thanks to its partnership with several providers, you get moderate to low-cost mental healthcare.

Here are some of Cerebral’s in-network insurance providers:

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

Like Talkiatry, I was required to take a short eligibility assessment to check if my insurance carrier had collaborated with Cerebral. This depended on my state of residence, and I could use this feature to get a ballpark estimate of my treatment.

A fixed monthly access fee of $30 is not covered by insurance. This is true for all, irrespective of the plan you select. My total treatment bill via insurance coverage was calculated based on my in-network insurance plan details, location, treatment needs, and deductible amount.

Cerebral made it even more convenient by letting me use the same insurance plan for both my virtual consultations and medication prescriptions. However, they were billed as two separate entities. They had nothing to do with the copays I paid after every session.

Also, you might need 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 your cost-share responsibility.

4. Accessibility

Let us review Talkiatry and Cerebral on the accessibility front so you know whether or not you can access their services from where you currently reside.

Talkiatry

Talkiatry is a fully virtual psychiatric care platform, so there are no geographical barriers when it comes to treatment. The platform is majorly operational in the following states:

• Washington DC.
• Ohio
• Idaho
• Nevada
• Illinois
• North Dakota
• West Virginia
• Kansas
• New Jersey
• North Carolina
• New Hampshire
• Kentucky
• Indiana
• Iowa
• Georgia
• Nebraska
• Wisconsin
• Montana
• Missouri
• Mississippi
• Utah
• Virginia
• Texas
• Tennessee
• Florida
• Minnesota
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• California
• Vermont
• South Carolina
• Michigan
• Maryland and more

Cerebral

I would rate Cerebral 10 on 10 for its superb flexibility and accessibility.

Also, the platform’s website and the app have a specialized interface for differently-abled patients to improve usability, which is impressive. Cerebral is forever committed to continuously enhancing the accessibility of its platform in compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1 Level AA.

Cerebral’s services are easily available across all states in the US. If you have signed up for prescription-based medication service, your provider will have to be licensed and certified to practice 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 US. Unfortunately, this one offering has location constraints.

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

Please note – To specifically address alcohol dependence, Cerebral provides both counseling and medication in only 36 states across the US. Here is the list for your reference:

• Alabama
• California
• Colorado
• Hawaii
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Florida
• Georgia
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Maine
• New Mexico
• Michigan
• Mississippi
• Missouri
• Montana
• Nebraska
• New Hampshire
• New Jersey
• New York
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• Tennessee
• Texas
• Utah
• Virginia
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Wisconsin. 

The treatment to help you get rid of addiction requires prescribed medication such as naltrexone, disulfiram, and acamprosate.

5. Privacy

How do Talkiatry and Cerebral perform when it comes to protecting their customer privacy? Let us find out in this section.

Talkiatry

Talkiatry complies with HIPAA rules and regulations and even follows strict SSL encryption to ensure 100% data security of its patients. Therefore, the platform’s past record is remarkably clean.

Personal and sensitive patient details are only shared by Talkiatry to comply with certain legal requirements.

Cerebral

Cerebral has been under fire for not providing enough clarity on how the platform intends to use patient records or their personal information. Moreover, certain privacy clauses need more clarification, like sharing customer details with third parties for commercial purposes. This may have raised questions about the platform’s morals and business practices.

A recent controversy highlighted ex-Cerebral executives claiming the company followed a dangerous approach of overprescribing stimulants like Adderall and similar drugs for ADHD treatments in children.

In light of the above, it may be hard to trust Cerebral completely, given it doesn’t fully commits itself to protecting its patients’ health records and other information.

According to popular social media opinion and uproar post controversy, the platform still refused to divulge details that mattered and was not too transparent about it.

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

Certain required changes have now been made to the FAQ section on the website stating that the use of stimulants such as Adderall (amphetamine/dextroamphetamine) and Concerta (Methylphenidate) are not prescribed for ADHD anymore. Post-revision, non-stimulants such as Wellbutrin or Strattera are currently used by the platform to address ADHD. 

However, I still would not fully trust Cerebral for medication management.

6. Available Treatments

This section is an overview of the various mental healthcare services offered by Talkiatry and Cerebral.

Talkiatry

You get all the required mental healthcare treatment options at Talkiatry, such as therapy, psychiatry, and medication management services. The platform has a decent network of mental health experts to help you address the following mental disorders:

• Depression
• Anxiety
• Substance abuse disorder
• ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder)
• PTSD (Post-traumatic stress disorder)
• OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder)
• Bipolar Disorder

Talkiatry also has child psychiatric specialists trained to treat children’s mental health issues. These experts are highly qualified with a 4-year medical school residency, at least three years of specialized residency in general psychiatry, and two years of fellowship in child and adolescent psychiatry.

They have a minimum of 9 years of experience in specialized approaches to developing psychiatric care plans for children and adequate support for their distressed families.

If you are struggling with severe eating disorders, intense suicidal tendencies, and paranoid schizophrenia, you are probably facing a crisis situation where Talkiatry cannot do much. I would advise you to confide in your trustworthy support group or contact suicide prevention helplines in your state of residence/country.

Cerebral

Here are some of the conditions treated by Cerebral using evidence-based treatment protocols and approaches:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Postpartum depression
• Insomnia
• ADHD in a few states
• Bipolar Disorder in a few states
• Stress management
• Anger management
• Loss and grief management
• Trauma management
• Relationship problems
• Phobias
• Low confidence or Low self-esteem
• LGBTQI+ issues
• Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) – only provided in a limited number of states
• PTSD
• Menopausal depression and more

You are eligible to receive Cerebral treatment if you are 18 years old and above. The platform is great for long-term psychiatric care with follow-ups and medication management for severe mental illnesses.

You can even opt for talk therapy for less severe mental issues and to get to the bottom of your disturbed emotional state.

7. Pros and Cons of Talkiatry

I will now summarize both platforms’ major pros and cons to help you evaluate them and finalize your choice.

8. Pros and Cons of Cerebral

Conclusion

I do not recommend Cerebral for medication management due to their questionable prescription practices, which they have seemingly revised. Talkiatry, in my opinion, remains the preferred mental healthcare platform.

However, Talkiatry’s Trustpilot score is too low compared to Cerebral, mainly due to bad customer service, excessive billing issues, deceptive pricing, etc. There are certain treatment constraints when it comes to addressing severe mental health illnesses.

In that case, Cerebral may help you with this. However, if you opt for Cerebral, I would only suggest taking its psychotherapy and psychiatry services. Even if you choose medication management, I would advise you to verify and double-check everything prescribed to prevent health complications later.