We need to keep the momentum going because we need Headway to stay in their place vs the exhausting cycle of outrage and acquiescence to the growing influence of venture capital on independent mental healthcare.
So no, we cannot afford to let this conversation die simply because Headway’s CEO apologized, paused the rollout of its proposed agreement, and suggested that clinicians had reasonably interpreted its provisions in ways the company never intended.
Holy gaslighting!
Then the CEO also disclosed that his wife had suffered a miscarriage that week and attributed his lack of oversight to that personal tragedy.
While his family’s loss deserves compassion, a tragedy occurring that week does not explain how an extensive legal agreement was drafted, reviewed, approved, and distributed in the first place.
And quite frankly has no place in this discussion.
Because as therapists, we should recognize the uncomfortable dynamic created when a deeply personal disclosure enters a conversation about institutional accountability.
Yes we can walk away but not before we cut them down to size by exposing their deplorable tactics.
We can extend empathy without allowing it to replace accountability.
So let’s be clear nothing has been resolved.
The October 19 coverage in Behavioral Health Business was a start.
But the story is much bigger than one contract or a $9.99 fee.
Here are the issues I believe deserve serious investigative attention:
- Independent practices being squeezed out. VC-backed platforms dominating paid search placements and competing with individual clinicians for Google visibility, Psychology Today traffic, and prospective clients.
How many small practices have lost revenue or closed as a result?
- The erosion of independent contractor status. Clinicians classified as 1099 contractors while facing increasingly restrictive documentation, administrative, and operational requirements.
At what point does this degree of control warrant worker-classification scrutiny?
- Patients and clinicians paying for platform mistakes.
Incorrect patient charges, billing errors, delayed reimbursements, denied claims, and financial consequences that fall on clinicians and patients rather than the companies responsible.
This practice allows Headway to actually get more money for those sessions than insurance would pay them. Multiple that across 80k clinicians and we can see why they won’t stop this practice when it’s their error.
Contractual overreach. Headway attempting to secure sweeping rights to clinicians’ names, images, voices, and professional content, including rights that could survive termination.
Financial liability being transferred onto clinicians. Insurance audits, extrapolated clawbacks, indemnification provisions, and potentially devastating repayment exposure while ever so quietly dismantling clawback protections.
Loss of control over our own practices and patient relationships. Restrictive contractual provisions, barriers to changing platforms, patient portability concerns, and potential disruptions to continuity of care.
The consolidation of power over mental healthcare. Venture-backed intermediaries gaining increasing influence over patient discovery, credentialing, billing, reimbursement, and access to insurance networks.
The takeover of clinician search visibility and professional identities.
Independent clinicians are increasingly competing with heavily funded platforms across Google, Psychology Today, Zocdoc, and other search results for the very patients we are trying to reach. We’re being pushed toward dependence on companies that have the resources to outspend and outrank us.
These companies recruited us with promises of independence, better reimbursement, administrative freedom, and the ability to build sustainable practices.
Now we’re being asked to accept increasingly restrictive terms as the cost of accessing the very infrastructure we’ve become dependent upon making it a slow bait and switch.
At what point does a company that was supposed to support independent practice begin controlling it?
Headway did not pause its proposed agreement until WE pushed back.
We organized. We contacted leadership. We demanded answers. And the CEO acknowledged our concerns and reversed course.
Collective advocacy works.
But an apology is not contractual protection.
A paused rollout is not a permanent victory.
And a revised agreement is not necessarily better simply because it’s less objectionable than the one it replaces.
Because that may have been the plan all along.
Here’s my ask:
If you have contacts in national media, investigative journalism, healthcare law, professional associations, or legislative offices, please share them.
If you’ve experienced financial losses, billing failures, restrictive contracts, declining referrals, or threats to your practice’s independence, document your experience.
Contracts. Emails. Screenshots. Payment records. Financial impact.
We need evidence that journalists, regulators, and legislators can investigate.
Please protect patient confidentiality, and feel free to add other industry concerns in the comments.
I’m not interested in destroying companies.
I’m interested in ensuring that companies like Headway stay in their lane.
Because without us there is no them.
We can’t allow them to become so powerful that independent clinicians can no longer operate without them.
And if we don’t organize to change that system, we’ll spend the rest of our careers adapting to whatever terms it imposes on us.
