How Therapists Can Use Mentaya To Get Private Pay Clients Reimbursed (Without a Superbill)

Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Thriving Therapreneur Podcast. Today I am talking with somebody whose company sits right at the intersection of everything that we talk about on this show, which is helping you clinicians build a sustainable, well-paid practice, whether that be a therapy practice or a coaching business. So I'm sitting with Maria. She is the CEO of Mentaya. Which is a platform that maybe you've heard of. It helps therapists, specifically private pay therapists, collect their full cash rate while helping their clients get reimbursed through out-of-network insurance benefits. Basically, in a nutshell, it's gonna automate the super bill and the claim process so that your clients can get money back without the therapist, you, having to do all of this paperwork or accept insurance directly, which is what you don't wanna do, what you've probably gotten off of and moved to private pay. Or just started off rip private pay because insurance headaches and nightmares are only getting worse, which is pretty scary. So welcome to the show, Maria. I would love for you to just properly introduce yourself. Tell me, what did I miss in your introduction? And are you excited to be here or what? Yeah.

Thank you so much, Carly, for that wonderful intro. I'm very, very excited to be here. Um, I think I've really admired your content for a while, so it's been great to be able to partner in this way and do this podcast together. Um, and from my intro, in a nutshell, that's kind of who I am. I studied psychology myself, actually, and I had been planning to become a therapist, and instead I joined Mentaya around 4 years ago. I actually started as a growth associate and then worked my way up and this year became CEO. So it's been a great journey and I'm excited to talk more about it today.

Yeah. So bring us back to the origin story of Mentaya and you started when the company was smaller. You've worked your way up. What was the frustration in the field? In the industry, because there's lots of gaps, there's lots of frustrations. I think every therapist has their qualms with just the way the system works. What was the frustration specifically that sparked Mentaya being birthed?

That's a great question. So I actually connected with Christine, the founder, before she even started the company. I think the year where she was ideating and starting to think about what was missing in the space. Christine, our founder, worked at Google and she lives in San Francisco, so she's in the bubble of all these tech companies who at the time it was COVID. So a lot of people were realizing, okay, mental health care is such an important space. There's so much things that we need to build out. And what she realized is that a lot of companies had a similar mission that was close to her heart, which was to be more affordable and accessible, make mental health care easier for clients to be able to access. But as she started digging deeper, she did realize that a lot of these companies were often doing it at the cost of therapists themselves. So there were a lot of companies asking therapists to take more insurance or to lower their rates. have more volume, maybe less autonomy over their practice. But what she realized is that all of these therapists, you know, have trained for so long, their dream is to build a private practice, and it's harder to access that quality mental health care. So Mentaya was built on that train of thought. We truly believe that we could make quality mental health care more accessible and let therapists, you know, charge their full rates. By helping clients access their out-of-network benefits. So simultaneously, at the time, Christine was struggling to submit her own super bills, and she just thought, okay, this seems like there should be a better process for all of this. So that's how it kind of started. And we started talking about it. I was still studying undergrad at Duke, and she She really just needed engineers to help build out the product. And once she did, we reconnected and I actually started off as the first non-ent hire, which was really cool to be able to see Mintaya be built up from, from the ground up and just see how many therapists and practices we were able to help stay private pay or transition into private pay and be able to get their clients reimbursed. you know, thousands of dollars back from benefits that they were already paying for. So it's been a really interesting and fulfilling journey.

Yeah, I mean, the market need is there. You guys blew up so fast because this is the ultimate win-win. And I love that you highlighted that you built this with the therapist in mind. A lot of those companies that you were talking about They built the company with profit in mind, and therapists often got the short end of the stick, right? So this is great for the therapist and it's great for the client. It's no surprise that Mentaya has continued to grow and scale at the rate that it has. And I'm curious, when you first started to where you are now and moving your way up to CEO, what's even coming for Mentaya, or how has this mission Evolved and maybe even shocked you as you've seen the demand and how fast you guys have grown?

That's a wonderful question. I think for us, something that's always been so, so important is to be therapist first and customer first. So part of my role at Mentaya has always been to create relationships with therapists and make sure that even if we're doing things that aren't as scalable, like having agentic customer service 24/7 and automating everything. For us, it's been really important to create relationships with the people that are actually using us and understanding, okay, what are the gaps? What are the possible solutions? What are therapists actually needing and wanting from us? And I think that when we started, like you said, we grew really fast, and it was really interesting to see all of the different things that we could possibly do. We get a lot of inquiries from like PTs and OTs as well, and different kinds of therapists who want to be able to submit claims and get their clients reimbursed for out-of-network. And I think that we had always, you know, tried to see where do therapists need us the most, like where are the different ways that we can start expanding our business, because out-of-network claims It's a small niche, but we've actually found that it's bigger than you would expect, which is why we haven't expanded yet. I think what's new for Mentaya in the coming months or years is to be able to expand our services to other types of therapists as well. We definitely want to stay in the out-of-network niche. I think right now we're also at a really interesting point where we have a lot of data because we've submitted so many claims, we've worked with insurance plans across all states that I think now is the time for us to kind of take a step back, look at that data, be able to see how we can improve our operations, how we can be able to educate people also a lot more on their out-of-network benefits and therapists as well, just because it's such an underserved space. It's something that, like, even if you're paying for out-of-network benefits, sometimes you don't know that you are. And Even if you're a private pay therapist, there's a lot of misconceptions when it comes to the out-of-network therapy world. And I think that now that we're equipped with, with so much data and with so much information, I think part of our mission is to be able to share that with everyone that uses us or that will use us in the future, to be able to just provide them with the knowledge that they need in order to get reimbursed to stay in therapy for as long as they need. And on the other side, for practices to be able to convert clients better, to be able to retain them better, to be able to understand that just because you don't take insurance, it doesn't mean that your clients can't use it. So I think our mission remains the same at the high level. It's just a matter of expanding that reach to so many new practices and clients and be able to make this process A lot easier.

Yeah. And that's just the natural progression. It's funny, that's exactly how it happened for me as well. So I'm a licensed clinical social worker by trade, and naturally I attracted mental health clinicians, right? But since I've been growing the brand for the past 6 years, OTs, PTs, SLPs— I mean, not even licensed clinicians, just wellness professionals started reaching out. And the reality is the same concept applies. So I love that for you all because again, the demand is there as you keep expanding, just reaching out to other types of clinicians. I want to talk about going from insurance to private pay for a second because there's a lot of fear around this for clinicians. They want to do it. Of course, it makes sense financially for the business. But they're afraid that getting clients isn't gonna be as easy. Can you walk us through what actually happens? Let's pretend they do decide to go private pay. They're gonna use Mentaya. What does the conversation actually even look like for them with their client? Like they're getting on a consult call and then they get the objection. Well, do you, they get the question really, do you take insurance? And then you have to handle. that question, which comes into kind of like a sales objection, right? What are they actually saying? What is actually happening if they're using Mintaya?

That's a great question. And I'm happy to answer it in different parts. So the first part is taking the decision to leave insurance. I think a lot of providers are scared to make that switch. They feel restricted by, by insurance panels. They, you know, feel trapped. They're overworked, they are underpaid, and they just don't feel like it's the right time to leave insurance panels. And they don't know how to say it to clients that they've been seeing maybe for years. But the reality is that there's never gonna be a great time. It's just a matter of having all of your ducks in a row and being able to prepare yourself For that conversation that you mentioned, whether it's a new client that you're seeing who's asking if you take insurance or having that conversation with a longtime client and letting them know that you're slowly transitioning off of insurance panels. What I always say is tell your clients with enough time if you are transitioning off of insurance panels, and it's not gonna happen from one day to the next. Like you can make that decision and then it might take you 3 months to actually be depaneled with insurance companies. But one way to be able to ease that conversation is to bring out-of-network benefits into it. So a lot of providers just say, no, I don't take insurance, or I'm no longer going to take your insurance. And right away your client kind of freaks out and they're like, okay, well, how much do you charge? And when you say $200 or $250, that serves as a sticker shock for the client. They're like, okay, well, I was paying X amount, or I wasn't expecting that. I don't know how I'm going to handle that. And the reality is that just because you're no longer taking insurance, or maybe you never were, it doesn't mean that your client can't use it to get reimbursed for therapy. And it's important to let your client know that upfront and let them know, well, I'm not taking your insurance, but you might have out-of-network benefits. And with Mentaya, we do provide an instant benefits calculator that you can just enter their information, check their benefits in a matter of seconds. Some therapists, you know, decide to give them a script and they call insurance companies themselves, but that shifts the conversation because it helps clients understand, okay, they charge $200 a session. Let's say you enter their information on Mentaya and they see, okay, I first, I do have out-of-network benefits. They probably have a deductible. Let's say they have a $1,000 deductible and they're getting reimbursed around 70% on their sessions. Then what that means and what you can help explain to them is that it's going to take them maybe 5 or 6 sessions for them to meet that deductible. They're not gonna expect reimbursement, but once they meet it, then they're gonna get reimbursed around $140 back. From insurance. And that just shifts the conversation because the client sees, okay, they're charging me this amount, but I can get reimbursed. This is the therapist that I want to see. And it helps them be able to make that decision quicker and convert them on the spot. I also encourage it even if your client doesn't have out-of-network benefits or has a really high deductible or not great out-of-network benefits. Just because I truly think that educating your clients around this is the key and being able to have these type of like awkward money conversations with your clients upfront is really gonna fortify that therapeutic relationship and it's gonna make it so much easier to continue to have those conversations cuz it's not necessarily ever going to be a one-time thing. You know, you might be raising your rates, you might start them off in a sliding scale or You know, it's an ongoing conversation and it's good to be able to just address it upfront with your client and let them know what their options are.

Yeah. So what does the claims process actually look like then from, let's say, the client side? If the client's asking, well then what do I have to do in this process? So you're, as the clinician, using the calculator, you're giving them the knowledge, and then they say, okay, yay, I'm gonna move forward. Now what happens?

Yeah. So I always say that the instant benefits calculator is the first step, right? So that's the conversion piece. It's you being able to get a client who found you to actually start seeing you, right? The second step is retention. So once a client starts seeing you, how can they continue to see you consistently? And I'm curious if this has been your experience, but from what we've heard and talked about with so many other therapists, when they ask their clients the number one reason for drop-off, it's most likely financial reasons. They say, well, you know, I've been feeling a lot better and I just wanted to see you monthly instead of weekly because, you know, those $200 bills were, were adding up and I just thought it would be better that way. So when clients can actually get reimbursed and be able to reinvest that money in therapy, it makes Such a big difference for you and for your client and for their care. And the superbill process can be tough. So knowing the benefits is the first step, and it's the easy part. The next step is clients actually submitting claims to get reimbursed. And the typical route is a therapist gives a client a superbill, usually at the end of the month, and they tell the client, you know, good luck. Here you go. I don't take insurance, so I'm not involved with this process, but it's up to you to get reimbursed and submit this on your own. And that sounds great in theory because as a therapist, you're not involved with the insurance and you know, you're out of network. You don't want to be. But the reality is that your client also doesn't wanna deal with this. They feel overwhelmed by the process. Maybe they submitted the super bill and it got denied and they didn't understand why. So where Mentaya comes in, and the most powerful thing truly, I think that we do is we automate this process. All you have to do as a therapist is let us know when the session has occurred and we take care of the rest. We submit a claim directly to the insurance company and we follow up with insurance to make sure that your client is approved and that their claims are either applied to their deductible or that they get reimbursed. So that they don't have to think about it and neither do you. This way, if your client has questions or, you know, if insurance is coming back and they're being annoying, we handle it. You don't have to deal with it and neither does your client.

It's beautiful. Honestly, you'd be silly not to use Mentaya just because you guys have taken the headache out of the whole entire process, both for the therapist again and the client. I just. I can't even put words to the ultimate win-win that this is. This has been such a practical, grounding conversation. There's a lot more that you could share about Mentaya. I want to leave you with, you know, is there anything else that you want to share, Maria, when it comes to Mentaya? But also, where can listeners find Mentaya? Is there a resource that you want to point them towards. Of course, I'll include all of this in the show notes as well.

Yeah, I think the one other thing that might not be as obvious when you see our website and everything is that when you partner with Mentire, you're truly partnering with a team of people. We take that really seriously because we know how important the relationship between the therapist and their client is. We don't take that lightly, and We want to make sure that we're helping you build trust, that you're partnering with people that you can rely on and that you can also be able to count on. So it's something that you're doing to outsource in your practice, and it's something that like you and your clients are dealing with, and it is something that can be awkward, can be annoying. There's a lot of frustration when it comes with insurance and claims getting denied and maybe payments getting delayed. And we're here to best support your clients so that you don't have to deal with all of that. So yeah, I always love to emphasize that with Mentaya, you're truly partnering with an excellent team of people who are there to answer any questions that you have, any questions that your clients have, and be able to deal with that frustration that comes with insurance.

Yeah, I can attest to that. Real humans you're actually getting, not just like an AI bot team in a different country.

Exactly, exactly. And in terms of where to sign up and how to find us, we make it as easy as possible. You can just, you know, google menti.com and join for free. And if you have any questions, you can email us and we're happy to help. We also do daily demos that you can join and see for yourself how everything works. Yeah, I really appreciate it, Carly, and this has been wonderful.

Thank you for being on the show, Maria. All those links will be in the show notes for you all, and I will see you in the next episode. My love is with you.