[lfittl]

The "$300 mental health" seems odd - for any kind of counseling/therapy/etc sessions this is a drop in the bucket in terms of cost.

It will easily cost 10x to work with a mental health professional (and insurance companies sadly pay a very small amount of it). So why add this to an otherwise reasonable package?

[nbar1]

$300 is incredibly reasonable since it's more than $0.

[brookst]

I think this is a case of small help coming across as worse than no help, even though rationally that's not true. Like if I ask you to write a quick script that'll take a half hour... offering you $5 may be worse than just asking it as a favor.

I'm sure their heart is in the right place and offering mental health coverage is a good thing, it's just the number causes a double-take.

[jamesliudotcc]

They are paying the COBRA. So this goes toward copays and hitting deductible. Assuming their health coverage is good (why wouldn't it be, it's a San Fran tech company?), this gets you pretty far.

[rdtwo]

It’s like one private pay visit at a really good clinic. They can then help guide you somewhere that’s covered by insurance. Mental health is full of quackery so best start at a top notch place

[lfittl]

To clarify why it bothers me: It tries to tell a story of "we as a company care about you", but at least in my experience, health care plans cover less than $100 per session, and in the SF Bay Area you easily pay $200+ per session for mental health professionals (as they are often out of network).

Maybe Apollo's health care plan has much better out of network coverage than what I'm familiar with, in which case I stand corrected (and agreed that its good to help cover copays, if this is what this actually does).

[lynx23]

You nailed it!

[throwaway2037]

Why was this downvoted? You raised an important issue. Does this mean the health plan has terrible mental health coverage? I guess so. (It would be great if someone who works for Apollo care share details about your mental health coverage.)

When I worked in the US, my health plans had pretty good mental health coverage. You could spend 1,000s of USD per year for psychotherapy / counseling with zero-to-minor co-pays. If you required medication (prescribed by a psychiatrist), that was also well-covered with zero-to-minor co-pays. I remember specifically that mental health care had "higher coverage" because therapists were rarely part of the insurance company's network. You paid the health professional directly, then require reimbursement from health plan. (Yes, I know this isn't true for all health plans.)

To hire an experienced mental health professional in SF Bay Area, I guess the rate is 100 to 200 USD/hour. Most will have sliding scales, but that will not apply to well-paid engineers.

[suchire]

At least for Kaiser Permanente in the SF Bay Area, which is one of the biggest healthcare providers, they are notoriously bad at covering and providing mental health services

[dancrumb]

It's worth noting that a lot of therapists (especially solo or small-practice therapists) don't take any insurance at all, which makes visits de facto out-of-network.

Folks on an HDHP or who don't get through their deductible most years would probably end up spending most, if not all, of this out of pocket. Even if they would get something back they have to do all the dealing with the insurer.. and that's assuming that they understand superbills and all the BS that insurance companies make you wade through...

In short, $300 just clears all of this out of the way. You go; you get reimbursed for the visit; you get to decide what to do next.

[social_quotient]

It’s an amount that likely covers the first visit. People that have struggled in the past will already know the benefits and the service. People newly disaffected will be reluctant to “just go” so the 300 bucks takes that off the table. If/when they go and decide it’s a value add to their circumstances then it will be prioritized and paid for.

I see it as a coupon to try it out.

[lfittl]

Fair point, I read this more under the light of paying for an ongoing therapist relationship to deal with a challenging situation (which as noted in another comment, $300 as a one time payment doesn't do much if you have weekly sessions with an out of network provider).

I agree it might help someone make a decision to try out therapy and see whether its a good idea for them.

[rpastuszak]

I think it might be just enough to make someone consider trying therapy since it’s free, and that’s a good start.

[brundolf]

In my experience that covers 2-4 visits outside of insurance. That's enough to help you process eg. the stress of suddenly losing your job