Online therapy in North Carolina

For most people and most concerns, yes. Research consistently finds telehealth therapy as effective as in-person therapy for many mental health conditions, and our own experience matches: the same depth of work happens over video that happens in our therapy rooms, for anxiety, depression, relationship challenges, grief, and much of what brings people to us. For most mental health services we offer, the screen isn’t the limiting factor. We’d tell you if we thought otherwise. Some situations genuinely benefit from being in the room, and if your therapist believes yours is one of them, they’ll say so directly.

Sessions run on SimplePractice, a HIPAA-compliant platform built for healthcare. It’s encrypted video, not consumer conferencing software. You get a secure link before each session; there’s no account to create, nothing to download, and an optional phone app if you prefer one. What you say in session stays as private online as it does in person.

Every clinician on our team can see clients located anywhere in North Carolina. Several can also see clients in South Carolina, through dual licensure or PSYPACT, the interstate compact that lets participating psychologists provide virtual therapy in the large majority of US states. What matters legally is where you are during the session. So if your situation is complicated (split time between states, an upcoming move), just ask, and we’ll confirm before you commit to anything.

The same as in person. Individual therapy ranges from $230–$250 per session and couples therapy from $245–$280, depending on the clinician. We’re an out-of-network practice: you pay at the time of your session, and we file the reimbursement paperwork with your insurance for you. Telehealth sessions are eligible for out-of-network reimbursement the same way in-person sessions are, and most clients end up paying roughly $50–$125 per session after reimbursement.

We don’t bill insurance directly, but most major insurance plans include out-of-network mental health benefits, and most now treat telehealth sessions the same as in-person sessions for reimbursement. We handle the claims paperwork on your behalf. North Carolina’s major insurance providers — Blue Cross NC, Aetna, Cigna, UnitedHealthcare — include out-of-network mental health benefits on many plans, and telehealth services generally qualify the same way office visits do. Coverage varies by plan, so it’s worth checking your out-of-network benefits before your first session.

No. We’re a practice of psychologists and therapists, not prescribers, and we think that’s worth saying plainly since many online therapy platforms blur the line. If medication management becomes part of your care, your therapist will coordinate with your physician or help you connect with a psychiatric provider. Medication management stays with a prescriber; the therapy stays with us, and the two work fine in parallel.

Anytime. Plenty of our clients do both: video most weeks, in person at our South End office when they want the room. Same therapist either way, nothing to re-explain and no paperwork to switch. Just tell your therapist which you’d prefer that week.

Yes, and we do a lot of it. Both partners on one couch sharing a screen, or in two different cities on two screens: both work, over the same secure, HIPAA-compliant video. The research on couples therapy holds up over video, and that matches what we see, whether the two of you are in the same room or meeting your therapist from different time zones.

It happens. Rejoin through the same link and the session picks back up; if video won’t recover, your therapist will call you and you’ll finish by phone. You won’t lose a session to a shaky internet connection.

They’re the two most common reasons people start online therapy with us, and the evidence base for treating anxiety and depression by video is the strongest of any mental health conditions studied. Worry that won’t switch off, panic, low motivation, the flat going-through-the-motions kind of depression: this is bread-and-butter work for our clinicians, online or in person. If what you’re carrying is heavier than that — or you’re not sure what it is — that’s still a fine place to start, and North Carolina is well inside our coverage wherever you are in the state.

AI tools can be genuinely useful for some things: organizing your thoughts, journaling prompts, finding language for what you’re feeling. But they aren’t therapy. There’s no license, no confidentiality protections, no clinical accountability, and no relationship — and decades of research say the therapeutic relationship is the single strongest ingredient in whether therapy works. Our intake was designed by psychologists, not algorithms, and so is everything after it.

That’s the most common way people arrive. You don’t need a diagnosis to start, and you don’t need to know whether you want cognitive behavioral therapy, psychodynamic work, or something else; helping you figure that out is our job. The best way to begin is simply to tell us what’s going on. We’ll recommend the therapist whose expertise and style fit, with support at every step, and you’ll see available appointment times right away.