Anxiety Solutions is offering the option to do sessions in person for vaccinated clients and child clients 11 and younger.

We are also still offering online therapy for those who prefer it or who are not vaccinated.

Notice to all of our clients and prospective new clients:

• Therapy requires being indoors in close quarters for a prolonged period of time, which is unfortunately a higher risk type of activity for spreading Covid.  Given that therapy carries this uniquely high risk for Covid and because we want to keep our clients and therapists safe and not contribute to the spread of the virus, we have decided to require vaccination for our clients who want to be seen in person. We also want clients coming to the office to be comfortable in the knowledge that everyone else who is coming to the office is vaccinated. The reason we are allowing children 11 and younger to also be seen in person even if they are unvaccinated is because research has shown that younger children carry a much lower risk of catching and transmitting Covid and that the risk of severe consequences to children is also much lower.

• Another contributing factor to our decision to require vaccination is the fact that we have an excellent alternative to in-person sessions: we used online therapy with all clients for the entirety of the first year of the pandemic and feedback from our clients about online therapy has been extremely positive. In fact, most of our clients who have been doing online therapy like it so much that they are actually choosing to stick with it even though they now have the option of meeting in person.  This is because our online therapy platform works great and clients have said that they actually love the convenience of it.  Given this positive feedback from clients (and our therapists too), we feel that online therapy is an excellent alternative for our unvaccinated clients.

We understand that in spite of these reasons, this may be frustrating that we are not meeting in person if you are not vaccinated.  If you have any questions or concerns about the policy, please contact our practice manager, Dr. Michael Stein, at drstein@anxietysolutionsofdenver.com and he would be happy to talk with you.  Please also see the FAQ below.

Frequently asked questions about online therapy:

• In online therapy, isn’t some of the person-to-person interaction lost?

  • No, the vast majority of the time we have used our online therapy platform, the connection works very well and the interaction feels normal. The picture and sound are typically good quality and there is typically no lag time. In our experience, it does not end up being much different from sitting in the same room talking in person. Clients have had very positive feedback about it as well. If you are hesitant to try online therapy, we are happy to set up a test call for you with our admin (at no charge) to show you how well the platform works.

• Is online therapy as effective as in-person therapy?

  • Yes.  Many research studies have been done comparing the effectiveness of in-person therapy and online therapy and these studies have found no difference in treatment outcomes. Our own personal experience since the pandemic began has also been that it is just as effective. In fact, we have found that in some cases there is even an advantage to online therapy because there are certain exercises in Exposure Therapy that require the client to practice with certain objects/situations at home and we can now do that live during therapy sessions, whereas we could not do that if we were at the office.

• Is the connection secure?

  • Yes, the platform we use, doxy.me, is designed for medical use so it is HIPAA compliant and heavily encrypted to protect your confidentiality.