SonderMindReviews of sondermind.com

Ive been seeing Phyllis Cephas. But been unable to switch to her on my care team. I keep getting an error message when trying to replace my current therapist.

I have nothing but positive things to say about my therapist — she has been excellent. However, the billing system is a completely different story. It’s extremely frustrating and poorly managed. There appear to be only two or three people handling billing, and the only way to contact them is via email — there’s no phone support. They claim they'll bill your insurance, but often fail to do so, and you can't remove your credit card from their system. As a result, they’ve charged me over $1,000 for sessions that should have been covered by my insurance, had the claims simply been submitted. When I reach out, I'm repeatedly told it takes 30–60 business days to process claims — which is inaccurate. When they were billing correctly in the past, it took about a week. The only way I was able to get immediate attention from billing was by filing a chargeback with my credit card company — which shows that they can be responsive when they choose to be. If you're having the same issues, I strongly recommend considering that route to get a prompt resolution. In addition, the platform itself has technical issues. My therapist and I have had recurring problems connecting, and the automated system frequently sends incorrect confirmations — I’ll schedule a session for Wednesday and receive a confirmation for Tuesday. The quality of care from my therapist is top-notch, but the administrative and technical side of this service desperately needs improvement. If my therapist left, so would I.

Therapist is great. Your video connection every appointment so dar is sub par. We loose connection, it freezes,disconnects. It makes for a more stressful session. Both the therapists and myself were on a wired internet. If this happens again I will have to seek help elsewhere.

First, the positive: my therapist is amazing. I moved platforms (from a Sondermind competitor) to Sondermind to continue sessions with her. The downside: there are consistently technical problems with S's platform. (No, these are not 'clear my cache' or 'update your browser' type of issues.) Tonight I was in a session and the platform was nearly unusable. Pages were loading on top of other pages, and I couldn't schedule my next appointment. I finally gave up and emailed my therapist screenshots showing her what I was seeing. I work in software myself, and I question whether Sondermind has a QA process in place. At this point, I'm losing confidence in their ability to deliver a secure, quality experience.

I liked my therapist but they said they took Medicare and I had to pay X amount. Then turned around and charged me more than once for appts I already had. I unknowing built a huge debt with them due to them charging again for more $ long after I had had the sessions. You can't talk to ANYONE about it. Your only customer service choice to send them a message with a drop down menu and hope for the best. Their response is automated. Never a human. My therapist couldn't get anywhere with them either. Now I get an email I owe MORE for appts in Jan and Feb and March. Total surprise and unprepared and now owe money I have to put on a credit card because I don't have the $. I could pay what I was told the sessions would be and months later - NOPE! I am supposed to be on a payment plan and I get emails saying I owe more and I no longer use the service. Billing is utterly confusing and don't think you will only be charged for what they initially charge you, more charges are coming. Customer service is crap. Shame because my therapist was great and I really needed it. And I thought Betterhelp was bad.

My work offers me free counseling sessions every year through our Employee Assistance Program (EAP). All I have to do is call them up and they give me an authorization code for 5 sessions (in previous years it was 3). I used these sessions from 2016-2019 with no issues. I gave the information to my therapist, who ran her own practice, and she took care of the rest. Years later, I tried the same with Sondermind and at first, I was impressed by the professional website and the ease of use of setting up my account, with easy prompts to set up my insurance and even EAP information. It ended there. I've had 4 sessions so far and so far, not a single one has been successfully billed to my EAP code. I verified this with my EAP Optum/United rep on 4/7/25. They felt so bad for my case that I've been having to go back and forth between them and Sondermind to try to get Sondermind to figure out their own jobs in the billing department that the EAP rep filed a complaint on my behalf. One, because her company didn't provide simple information such as how many minutes I was given for each session and two, a complaint against Sondermind because they don't seem to know how to handle an EAP claim. You DON'T get to talk to their billing department on the phone, so forget about that option. No chat, either. It's by email and if you're lucky enough to get a reply, it will be a very abbreviated reply with nearly no details. As it stands, I still have an outstanding balance for my session on 2/20/25 that shouldn't even exist. My EAP rep said that I STILL have 5 free sessions available on my authorization code (that I request at the beginning of February). I've had a session in February, two in March and one in April, all of which I trusted Sondermind to bill correctly as an EAP claim to Optum-United. Not one session has been billed there. I went to Trustpilot looking to see what their reviews looked like and I wasn't surprised to see a sub-par score. One of the first reviews I read was a similar situation where someone stated "god help you if you have an EAP code" because they can't seem to figure out how to use those. The worst part of this experience is that my therapist has been helpful and I would continue with her, but the only networks she goes through is Sondermind and Headway and Headway doesn't take my normal insurance (Kaiser), and Sondermind can't handle EAP codes. I'm actually not sure that I trust Sondermind to handle a normal, non-EAP insurance claim at this point. I've rarely ever experienced an organization like this where you're not even allowed to speak to billing by phone. My therapist is as in the dark as I am as she said she has no way to speak to Sondermind, either. It's like the Wizard of Oz and there's some buffoon pulling a bunch of strings, but there's not really any sort of trained professionals behind the curtain. I may have to start completely over with a new network and new counselor. People should not have to be subject to this when they're just trying to get mental health assistance. I'm giving one star for my therapist and one star for the sign up process and the website design. Billing has been a nightmare. Update 4/9/25: I got a reply from Sondermind as I had anticipated. Looking at the reviews on Trustpilot, there are quite a few recent replies to the bad reviews on here. So Sondermind is aware enough to make it look like they want to address these issues, yet their score is so bad on here that 49% (the highest percentage) of the reviews are 1 star reviews. Do a search for "Sondermind Review" and if you do it in Bing, you may see a Microsoft Copilot answer that states as one of the bullet points: "Billing Issues: Some reviews mention challenges with billing, which could be a concern for potential users." For the rest of the people that have had positive experiences, they may just have gotten lucky. Either their staff is understaffed or undertrained and the unlucky clients will sometimes get a bad experience. This has gone on long enough. FIX YOUR ISSUES before they destroy your company's reputation. It shouldn't be that hard.

I was incorrectly charged for a video session that I did attempt to join only a few minutes late but my provider was not on the call. I sent her a message and she replied several minutes later - still well within our session time - but did not rejoin the call to provide care. After failed attempts to call their customer service (you can only be sent through the computerized phone tree if you're an insurance company or provider), I emailed my issue to support at sondermind.com. I received one follow up email a month ago with no claim number and a vague "we'll get back to you" with no reply since, even with my multiple follow up emails asking for an update. I really needed that therapy session and felt entirely abandoned both by my provider and now by Sondermind as a company because not only was I charged a high fee for a session I tried to attend, but I've received no response to my inquiry about the charge. This is so disappointing as a professional and a company with a mission to "improve mental health care – through easier access, use of individualized care, and life-changing outcomes." I have not felt like my individual care was considered at all and access has been anything but easy. Outcomes are life changing only in the sense that I now feel more jaded than ever about business integrity.

The therapist was great! It was a really good session. She was a real pro, but billing is ridiculous. I was charged $300 for an initial appt. I thought it was $120. Then I cancelled the upcoming session (for another $300) and they STILL tried to charge me! It would have been $600 for just one month! I'll never use this service again.