WBE Feature – Women’s Health Awareness: Insight Therapy Solutions

Intro: [00:00:07] Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios. It’s time for Women in Motion. Brought to you by WBEC West. Join forces. Succeed together. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:27] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Women in Motion and this is going to be a good one. But before we get started, it’s important to recognize our sponsor, WBEC West. Without them, we couldn’t be sharing these important stories. Today on Women in Motion, we have Franchesca Van Buren with Insight Therapy Solutions. Welcome.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:00:48] Thank you so much. I really appreciate the invite. It’s nice to be here today.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:52] Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. For folks who aren’t familiar, can you share a little bit about Insight Therapy solutions? How you serving folks?

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:01:01] Yeah, definitely. So Insight Therapy Solutions is a national talk therapy clinic. We are all telehealth and and we accept insurance. So basically counseling.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:13] Now what is talk therapy for folks who aren’t familiar.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:01:17] So. Yeah. So it’s it’s counseling. So basically like if you have, you know, depression anxiety, anger management family issues it’s counseling for that. So I say talk therapy because there’s lots of different types of counseling. You know there’s religious counseling. There is you know, school counseling things like that. So that’s why I say talk therapy because it’s basically therapy that, you know, that you talk about, like you talk about and get therapy, you know.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:47] So can you explain it between like a life coach and a therapist? How kind of would the work be different from a patient perspective?

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:01:57] Oh, it’s very different. So therapist therapy is a medical model. So therapists have to go to school. They generally have a master’s or a PhD. And then they are licensed through their state as therapists a life coach. There’s there’s a lot of programs out there that can be a week long. You know, it’s it’s not there’s no real degree for life coaching. So life coaching is really more, I would say like a motivational kind of thing. You know, you might get life coaching to help you figure out maybe you want to change your career, or maybe you want help figuring out how how do you reach reach your weight loss goals, you know, things like that. Whereas therapy is really much more, you know, generally there’s a diagnosis and you have an actual treatment plan and it might last five weeks, it might last six months, it might last years. But really therapy is very, very different from life coaching. It’s not the same thing at all.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:57] Now, what would be some of the things that a person’s going through, where therapy is the right path to go to solve their problem?

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:03:05] Well, therapy is is such a good thing for so many different things. You know, you think about, um, some people have things like chronic issues, like they may have chronic depression or they may have chronic anxiety, where, you know, their entire life they’ve struggled with with a mental health issue. And of course, therapy is very important for that. But you may also have a certain life issue that’s happening, such as maybe you’re going through a divorce or maybe you just lost your job, or maybe maybe you lost a parent, or even a child, or maybe you got a life altering diagnosis. Like maybe you’ve been told that you have cancer and, um, and that plunges you into depression and anxiety and that kind of thing. And so even if you never experienced a mental health issue before, uh, all of a sudden, you know, you may need a professional to come in and help you, help guide you through that. And, you know, one of the things that I think, um, brought the whole world to a better understanding of mental health issues is Covid. You know, Covid happened recently and that was such a that was such a terrible life event for all of us. Um, I’ve talked to many people about, you know, how Covid made them feel. And all of a sudden, all over the world, people, people now understood depression.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:04:30] They now understood anxiety because people who had never felt that before, because Covid was such a huge, life altering thing, all of a sudden they got it, you know, they couldn’t leave their homes. They were worried about their health. They were worried about their families. I mean, it was that was such an incredible event that we all went through where where we understood, you know, I think most people understood what mental health, um, what mental health issues were at that point. So, you know, I would say those are the types of things that, um, you might you might want to reach out to a therapist for basically, you know, anything that, uh, you’re feeling lost, you’re feeling confused. You know, you you feel like, um, maybe your daily life functions are, are are no longer, um, the way that they were. You know, maybe you don’t have motivation to get out of bed anymore. Maybe you hate your job and you hate your life, and you’re constantly, you know, yelling at your kids or, you know, yelling at your partner. Um, it’s it’s these kinds of personal crises that that we experience. Um, when you’re having a personal crisis, it’s a good it’s a good opportunity to reach out for help. Even if you never experienced what you consider mental health issues before.

Lee Kantor: [00:05:52] Now, do you think that prior to Covid, that people just thought that this type of anxiety and stress was just kind of part of normal day to day life and that you were just supposed to accept it and just kind of tough it out and that now there is, uh, more conversation and talk about that. This isn’t you know, you don’t have to tolerate this as normal. There are ways out of this. And we start labeling it and then actually talking about it and then trying to get help and trying to improve the situation.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:06:23] Oh, 100%. You are absolutely correct about that. You know, before it was, you know, buck up, buttercup. You know, you don’t. You’re sad. You’re upset. Well, you know, that’s life. Well, yeah, that’s life. But it doesn’t mean that that we can’t reach out for help. You know, it’s it’s like we have doctors to help our physical wounds. Why is it so terrible to reach out to a doctor to help you with your emotional wounds as well? You know, it’s just part of being healthy. It’s part of, uh, wellness is taking care of those things before they get worse. You know, you notice a problem, you notice, let’s say you notice a cut on your arm. Well, you’re going to you should treat it with antibiotic or not antibiotic, but, you know, like, uh, antibiotic cream, maybe, and put a Band-Aid on it. Make sure it doesn’t get worse. It’s the same thing with, with, uh, mental health issues that we come up with. You know, you start to see yourself decline. There are resources out there to help you with that. And there is there should be no shame in that. And you’re right. Before Covid, there was so much shame wrapped up around reaching out for help. There was so much shame. Well, you know, if I’m depressed or if I’m anxious or if I have postpartum, well, there’s something wrong with me, you know, especially like postpartum.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:07:38] You think about new moms. It is postpartum is something that affects, uh, such a great number of new moms. But guess what? You’re not supposed to talk about it. Because if you’re depressed after you have your baby, well, there must be something wrong with you. Despite the fact that it is so common. It is so common that, you know, doctors have a checklist of postpartum depression issues that they ask new moms, you know. Right. For the baby is born. Well, are you feeling depressed? Do you want to kill yourself? I mean, these, these keys, but it’s it’s ridiculous because there’s still a stigma that, you know, you can’t say that, uh, that something hurts inside, you know, you. But I will say it is so much better today than it was before Covid. Because as I mentioned, when Covid happened, we could not cope. You know, the world as a whole could not cope with the overwhelming, um. Black hole of despair. That was Covid, you know. And so today there is much less stigma around reaching out for help. And that is, you know, what a silver lining around Covid that it really has allowed people the the ability to, to reach out for help before things get really, really bad.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:59] Now, can we switch gears a little and talk about your journey? Have you always kind of been involved in this kind of work?

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:09:06] No, um, I am actually an attorney. I’m not even a therapist. Um, but, uh, I started this. I actually was a business attorney for a long time, and I started this company as, uh, basically as a hobby, as an after school program for, uh, troubled kids in a little tiny community that I grew up in. And, um, working with those kids, I realized that therapy was the linchpin in trying to improve their lives for the better moving forward. So these were kids who, uh, they were, you know, they were on free lunch. They lived with an aunt or maybe grandma. Their parents were on the streets on drugs. Um, I had just seen there was this cycle of, um, the cycle of of issues that these kids were dealing with, their families were dealing with. And, uh, they were they were under a lot of it was untreated mental health issues. And so we came in, we started the after school program. We brought therapists in, and all of a sudden we were really able to to change their lives in in a way that was just unbelievable and spectacular to me. And that’s when I realized, wow, like mental health is just so important in changing the world. So that’s that’s kind of how insight started. Um, like I say, it was an after school program. And then we realized the importance of therapy and decided to focus on therapy so that we could make real change.

Lee Kantor: [00:10:44] Now, when you started, it was in person. And now your business is primarily remote and virtual.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:10:50] Yes, it was in person. And when Covid hit, um, you know, we had this little office, it was a little old office, and the therapy was done in these little tiny, airless offices. And many of my therapists were older. Some of them were medically fragile. I didn’t feel like I could keep them safe. I didn’t feel like I could keep my clients safe if we were doing therapy in person. So I said, okay, well, you know what? Let’s, uh, let’s go online. And I was I was so scared. I was convinced that that was going to be the end of insight. But lo and behold, within three months, our retention rates had gone up 10%. And my therapists were telling me that they never wanted to go back to the office because they loved it so much working from home. So, uh, that was the beginning of really a huge expansion for us. Um, because without the burden of having physical locations, uh, we were able to get therapists licensed in many different states and, and start seeing clients in lots of different locations. So it was a pretty incredible thing for us.

Lee Kantor: [00:12:04] And when that occurred, I’m hearing that the, um, therapists were happy about the change, but were you noticing, uh, the clients were getting the same, if not better, results?

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:12:17] Better results. Better results. So, um, I pretty, pretty immediately we started seeing our retention rates go up. And what I mean by that is clients were sticking around for a longer period of time. And, um, that’s really important because therapy is like going to the gym. If you go one time, you’re not going to go anywhere. Um, it’s it’s the kind of thing where you’ve got to, you know, we usually have a treatment plan and treatment, depending on, uh, the client’s diagnosis will last. It’s supposed to. It should last anywhere from, you know, let’s say, uh, 2 or 3 months to six months. Um, but, uh, in the office, we had a lot of people drop off after the first time or after, you know, the second or third time. And we know that those people who drop off after the first, second or third time are not getting anywhere. They didn’t get effective treatment. And, um, you know, they’ve got to stick around for a little bit longer in order to actually get real relief of their symptoms, whatever their symptoms are. So, um, like I said, we started seeing our retention rates go up and, um, and client satisfaction went up. Um, so when we were in the office, it was, it was it was challenging for a lot of clients. We we had a lot of, uh, Medicaid clients who had transportation issues. And, you know, when the weather was hot, if they were taking the bus, they couldn’t they couldn’t make it, especially if they had if they had, um, medical issues. Um, if you, you know, if they had to if they didn’t have money for gas, you know, it was it was really hard for them to come to their weekly appointments because they just didn’t have the money for it.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:14:07] Um, let’s say they had any if they had a car accident or if they had a, a flat tire, you know, that that session couldn’t occur today. Those barriers don’t exist with telehealth. And it’s really it’s really an incredible thing. And I and I, I just have to emphasize the changes that Covid brought about with the insurance companies. Um. Previously, insurance companies would not reimburse for telehealth. You know, they or if they did, they they they paid a lot less. They really they didn’t like telehealth. Um, and then Covid happened and we realized we’ve got to get people help, you know, even if we think maybe it’s not as good, we’ve got to get them help. And so the insurance companies relented and they, um, took away a lot of these barriers. And so, you know, today, uh, Medicaid will will reimburse for a phone call, they’ll reimburse for, um, a video call. And while the majority of our sessions are video sessions, the ability to have just a telephone therapy session with somebody who is, um, who, who, who has, uh, issues paying for internet, you know, everybody’s got everybody. Almost everybody has access to the phone. So it just opens the doors so wide to allow people to access, uh, mental health benefits. It’s really it’s really an amazing thing that happened. So we saw tremendous benefit. We we still see tremendous benefit to people being able to utilize, um, uh, telehealth. It’s really an incredible thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:15:51] It sounds like you also expanded your potential clients beyond the the students in school. Now it’s adults and it’s, uh, businesses. You have more variety of clients nowadays.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:16:05] We do. We, uh, we do. We see. We see clients of all ages. We see all insurances. Um, and the wonderful thing is that we’re able to access people who were not able to access services previously. So, um, when we started, we started in rural Nevada, and it was very challenging for me to get quality clinicians to go out to rural Nevada. So I had, you know, my clinicians would drive an hour and a half, two hours a day to get to our physical location in order to see people in rural Nevada. We had an office, um, in, in a we had an office in one tiny town. And, uh, in that town, while I did have licensed clinicians, I, I was not able to get on all of the insurance panels. So I was so upset because we had this one lady call in and she was desperate to come in and see us because the only other therapist, the only therapist in town who accepted her insurance, was her next door neighbor. And of course, she didn’t want to be seen by her next door neighbor. So we tried desperately to to get on that panel or to get, um, like an exemption just for her. But the insurance, they wouldn’t allow it. So that and I and I still think about that today that that that poor woman was never able to access therapy um, because of, because of the, uh, strictures of time and place and the insurance company. But today, you know, we would be able we would be able to see her because, you know, now I have 50 clinicians that are credentialed with almost every insurance company. And, uh, we are no longer bound by geographical limitations. It’s just such an amazing thing.

Lee Kantor: [00:17:50] Now, uh, can you share any insight from a business leadership standpoint when it comes to running a I guess now it’s a fully remote company.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:18:01] It is. It is almost fully remote. We actually had to, uh, reopen a physical location in Las Vegas, uh, basically to, um, comply with the Nevada Board of Social Work. Um, because we, we have interns and they have certain rules for their interns. They want their interns to have some face to face time that they call it face to face time. So we do have a small physical location, but none of our administrative functions, um, come out of there. And, uh, it’s really a very small part of our operation, but almost everything we do is remote. Um, so. Yeah. So then you were saying what?

Lee Kantor: [00:18:43] What were like what from a from a business leadership standpoint, what are some of the challenges and maybe, um, learnings you’ve had in running a pretty much remote business? Because I would imagine just from a keeping the team on the same page, you have communication challenges. There’s, you know, how do you develop that corporate culture without, you know, being in the same building with people? Like some of those things could be challenges for a remote organization.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:19:11] Absolutely. And, you know, it’s interesting because I’ve had both experiences, you know, for the longest time we we had our physical location, but we were a lot smaller when we had our physical location. And we’ve grown exponentially since then. I mean, we when we, uh, shut down our physical office, I think we had, oh, fewer than ten team members, and today we have almost 90. So it’s a it’s a real big change for us. And, um, I. I think for us, the biggest challenge has been changing the way that we think about training people. So in the office we would train people, you know, we’d sit side by side and we would show them things on the computer or whatever. And, um, it was. It. We didn’t have the same need for processes and procedures that we have today, that we are much larger and we are all remote. Um, but and, and there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of pushback. I mean, you see it in the news, you know, these companies that are asking their remote workers to come back to the office and you have a lot of leaders who say, well, you know, I can’t monitor productivity. I you know, there’s a lot that’s lost when you’re not in person. Um. But for my perspective, that that’s not my that’s not my reality and that’s not my perspective. What I have seen is that, um.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:20:45] If you have the right policies and procedures in place, you can effectively run a remote company. Um. One of the amazing things for us has been that we are no longer because we’re remote, because we can hire talent anywhere in the world. And we do. And we have we have team members in at least ten different countries. We are we are able to access the best talent in all of the world. And, you know, when I was when I had my physical location, I was really limited to people who lived within like a 30 mile radius. And that was, uh, very, very limiting. Um, but having the right policies and procedures in place, having, you know, good onboarding that includes, um, the right kind of training. It’s just it’s it’s really all about training and it’s about having the right productivity tools. So we we actually do use employee monitoring software to, you know, to make sure that people are, um, working when they should be working and, uh, being as productive as they can be. You know, when when you’re in the office, you’re able to see, okay, is this person coming in on time? And are they are they leaving at the right time? Um, but one of the things that I always think about is I used to work at big law firms, and I remember walking up and down the halls and a lot of the people who were sitting there, you know, they had they were sitting in their seats.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:22:17] They were in front of their computers. They were sitting there doing online shopping. They were playing solitaire. They were on Facebook. They were not working. Um, so for us, we don’t have those problems generally. And if we do, uh, those people don’t stick around very long. So I actually think that we’re able to monitor what people do in a way that’s much more efficient than what I used to see in the office. Um, and then in terms of, you know, you think about, well, okay, well, what about FaceTime? You know, how do you establish relationships? Um, I, we use Google Workspace, um, for, for one of my companies. Another one, we use slack. But all day long the people on the team are communicating with each other. I so all day long we have we have voices in our heads of our teammates. Like we know what everybody is working on. We know what they’re doing. We’re constantly communicating. Um, we also use asana to keep track of, uh, the projects that everybody’s working on. And so we get constant updates on, okay, well, where are we on this project? Where are we on that project? Um, I, I, I think that remote work is just it’s so much more efficient, uh, than in person.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:23:37] I mean, my so for me personally, I don’t lose any time in the commute. You know, I, I, I’m here in my home office. I am productive all day long. I don’t have anybody coming in to my office. And, you know, just hey, how’s your day going? And, you know, hey, what did you do this weekend and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, which I understand there’s some value there, but when I was in the office, I would say 40% of my day, at least 40, 50, maybe even 60% of my day occasionally was taken up with those types of water cooler chats. I mean, I would close the door to my office and people would still come in and just hang out. And I am just so much more productive in my home office where I can control who is coming in and who is coming out. You know, like, I can pick up the phone to talk to somebody, I can do a zoom call, I can do a a Google Meet video call. Um, or I can just chat with them on the chat. I just think I just think that it’s I think remote work is, is so efficient. And when it’s done, I think that when it’s done well, it is so much better and so much more efficient than in-office work.

Lee Kantor: [00:24:45] Now, how do you protect the Insight Therapy Solutions brand when, um, and I’m sure this was an issue in the law firms. Right. Like the relationship between the client and the lawyer is one thing. And then how does how do you kind of protect the relationship between the client and the brand? You know, because that’s slightly different because the firm wants to keep the clients, obviously. And then you’re dependent on that individual who is dealing with them intimately, you know, for the vast majority of the time together.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:25:20] Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, uh, we have, we have. So. The way that we do business. It’s not just the therapist that has the touchpoint with the client because we are insurance based. Um, and more than that, you know, we have a we have an excellent front desk that is constantly in contact with clients to make sure that they’re that they’re happy with our services. You know, just to check in and see how things are going. Our billing department is constantly in contact with clients to make sure that they understand their insurance benefits. Um, so we we have a lot of touch points with clients. But to be honest with you, I encourage the therapists to have that close personal relationship with clients because that is where that is how good therapy happens. 70% of the efficacy of therapy is related to the relationship between the client and the therapist. And number one most important for me is that clients get good therapy and they have a good experience. So, um, I understand what you’re saying about protecting the brand, but I guess from my perspective, what’s what’s more important is that people get good quality service, and I expect that they’re going to establish that close personal relationship with their therapist. And, you know, at the end of the day, um, clients are free and they they should be free to choose the provider of their choice. Um, so, you know, if if a clinician leaves, um, sometimes the clients will go with them, uh, but sometimes they’ll stay with us because we provide good value and good service at every single touch point. So I guess what I’m saying is it’s more important to me that the clients, um, actually get something of, of value, and that is necessarily going to include that close personal relationship with their therapist. And I wouldn’t want to interfere with that.

Lee Kantor: [00:27:28] And one of the things that you do that I believe is kind of unique and special and is is more value to your client, is this complimentary therapist matchmaking service? Can you talk a little about that?

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:27:41] Yes. So that’s something I think very different from what other clinics do. Basically other clinics, if you call into a clinic and you say, hey, I’d like to see a therapist, they’re probably just going to put you with anybody that has an opening and that is not the right way to do it. Uh, our therapist matchmaking services, what it is, is when you call in and you say, hey, I’d really like to see a therapist. Our matchmakers get to know you. They get to know the issues that you’re dealing with and a little bit about your personality, because as I mentioned, 70% of the efficacy of therapy is related to the relationship between the client and the therapist. So every single client needs to be placed with the right match for them. And what that means is from a personality perspective. So, you know, of course the clinician needs to specialize in whatever the issues are, right? Like if it’s depression or anxiety or couples or whatever, and they need to accept the insurance, that’s important too. But also what is very important is the therapist’s personality and their style. So some clients might need a softer touch.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:28:49] You know, they might need somebody who’s warm and fuzzy, somebody who’s going to be, you know, like a warm blanket. Other clients may need somebody who’s going to be very firm with them, who’s going to call them out on stuff. And, um, those are the types of things that make for an effective therapeutic relationship down the road. And those are the things that we train our matchmakers to listen for when they are speaking to a new client. You know, is the new client soft spoken? Do they seem a little hesitant? Do they seem angry? Do they seem, um, like they would walk all over a softer spoken therapist? Um, and so that’s something very special that I haven’t seen any other, uh, clinic out there do. And I’m very proud of that. And and I think that that speaks to that also speaks to our retention rates. So 85% of our clients come back after the first time. And that’s a big deal. Um, with other clinics, you see, uh, 25 to 50% of clients don’t come back after the first time. So I think it really speaks to the effectiveness of our matchmaking program.

Lee Kantor: [00:30:02] Can you, um, share why it was important for you to become part of Webrequest?

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:30:09] Yes. So it’s.

Speaker4: [00:30:15] Um.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:30:16] How do I want to put this? As a professional woman, I have. I’ve had a hard time, just like most professional women do. And, um, you know, as a woman, when you walk in a room, you don’t have the same. Effect that men do even as a professional woman, as a lawyer. You know, I found this all the time. I was a litigator and I was a very aggressive litigator. And it always it always surprised me when I would walk into a room. Uh, I would sometimes have to be more aggressive than men because, you know, because I look like a cute little woman, you know? And so, um, it’s just it’s very it’s very difficult for women in the workplace. It’s very difficult for women in the professional world. And, um, I’ve, I’ve always tried to do business with other female professionals, and I’ve tried to do business with women owned businesses. And, um, it was when this opportunity was presented to me, I thought, wow, that seems like exactly the kind of place, uh, that I should be a part of because I want to meet other women business owners. I want to meet other people who have had the same struggles that I have had, and that understand where I’m coming from.

Lee Kantor: [00:31:44] So what do you need more of? How can we help you?

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:31:47] Well, um. That is such a great question. Uh, you know, I would I would just love to have more, um, connections, uh, with. I’ll be honest, we really have not utilized this resource the way that we should have. And part of it is, you know, we’ve been pulled in lots of different directions. Um, I’ve, I’ve, uh, I’ve learned some things, but, uh, I still find it to be a very complicated world. And so really, I think I’d like I’d like some additional support in figuring out the, the resources that are that are available through this organization.

Lee Kantor: [00:32:35] And if somebody wants to learn more about insight, what is the website? What’s the best way to connect with you?

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:32:42] Um, Francesca at Insight Therapy us. Uh, our website is Insight therapy Solutions.com. And, uh, we’re always, you know, we’re always looking for people to partner with, for people to collaborate with and, uh, put more good out into the world.

Lee Kantor: [00:33:03] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work, and we appreciate you.

Franchesca Van Buren: [00:33:08] Thank you so much. I appreciate that you had me today. Thank you.

Lee Kantor: [00:33:11] All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Women in Motion.