Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Telebehavioral health is the practice of behavioral health using a telecommunications system to provide clinical services, professional training, administrative and other services at geographically separate sites. Service can be delivered in “real-time” using the telephone, interactive video conferencing, or through “store and forward” which relies on the transmission of images and data for review at a later time. Telebehavioral health can also involve email, text messaging and a wide range of other software applications to facilitate access and data transfer. Devices can run from desktop computers on carts in hospital settings to smart devices such as tablets and smartphones. Telebehavioral health can also include storage services on the “cloud” and everything in between.

An older term for this service is “telemental health.” This older term has been replaced with “telebehavioral health” by the US Federal Office of Health and Human Services (HHS) to refer to the telehealth services delivered to the combination of substance use and mental health clients and patients. The new term is an attempt to de-pathologize and de-stigmatize health care for people struggling with any one of these disorders.

The first step mandated by all ethical codes in health is for professionals to demonstrate “competency.” Competency is formally recognized by training with a credentialed institution. At TBHI, we not only are approved by the leading United States mental health professional associations for continuing education or continuing medical education (AMA, AOA, APA, NBCC, ASWB, and NAADAC) but are internationally recognized as the industry’s leading private training organization and consultation organization. We make your start-up processes easy by being available online using digital or desktop devices. Our evidence-based, competency-based training provides the foundation you need to avoid common pitfalls and get started and prosper with confidence.

Simply stated, yes. For succinct details about how to do so legally and ethically, we recommend the 1-hour webinar, How to Legally Practice Over State Lines with Telebehavioral Health and Telemental Health

Absolutely. TBHI offers a variety of webinars, courses and certificate programs at both basic and advanced levels to assist with your decisions regarding how to choose a video, telephone, email, text messaging and cloud storage companies; required documentation, protocols for legal, ethical risk management. We’ll give you many short checklists to help keep you organized through the process; suggest questions to ask vendors, accountants, and attorneys to minimize your other professional fees. We will supply you with templates for practical use such as intake forms, progress notes, termination notes and informed consent legal clauses to consider for your informed consent documents and processes. We will help you develop the vocabulary and system knowledge to ask the right questions of the right authorities to get the answers you need to be in compliance with most state, provincial and federal laws in the United States, Canada and in many other countries worldwide.

Millions of telehealth sessions are being delivered every year in the United States, and worldwide numbers are much greater. Many single-payor countries (i.e., Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain) have been practicing telehealth for decades. At TBHI, you will be able to access over 4,500 journal articles and books that form the evidence-base for telepractice in behavioral health.

Our training addresses the common questions and decisions required in behavioral telepractice. We have distilled the most crucial information into a series of webinars, digital courses, in-person training experiences to earn Micro-Certification in a variety of topics, as well as a Professional Micro Certification at two levels, the Board Certified Telehealth Professional Level I Micro Certification and Board Certified Telehealth Professional Level II Micro Certification.

At TBHI, you have three options to get specific answers to your questions.

1. Each course at TBHI has a dedicated Discussion Forum, where you can interact with other participants at any time.
2. Purchase the “All Access Pass” to enjoy group discussions with our faculty on a monthly basis.
3. Direct consultation with our team of world-class consultants. Topics of potential focus covered by our extended network of consultants include specialty needs assessment, community outreach, work-flow analysis, ergonomic optimization of office settings, equipment recommendations, reimbursement systems, software set-up.

The Telebehavioral Health Institute (TBHI) is dedicated to offering telemental health and telebehavioral health education, training, consulting and staffing services to the professional health community. TBHI has developed step-by-step guidance for planning, launching and growing telemental and telebehavioral health clinical services. From September 2009 to January 1, 2017, the company was known as the “TeleMental Health Institute.” It thereafter was renamed to the “Telebehavioral Health Institute” (TBHI) to accommodate the US Health and Human Services changes in nomenclature.

With TBHI’s 100% online professional training program, professionals with access to the Internet from anywhere in the world can have immediate and 24/7 access to the following training materials:

• Individual Courses — timely and topic-focused 1-hour discussions to keep you up-to-date and fully informed of legal, ethical and regulatory updates, industry developments and other cutting-edge topics. They are accessible by computer or smart device, both in a LIVE format and afterward, in recorded form through our On-Demand Library. All webinars include a CE that is recognized by most state and provincial licensing boards.
• Certification Programs — Two programs are available: 15-hours and 36-hours, depending on your need for more specialized instruction. After completing this coursework, graduates will be eligible to apply for the Board Certified Telehealth Professional Level I Micro Certification and Board Certified Telehealth Professional Level II Micro Certification
• Telemental Health Consulting / Telebehavioral Health Consulting – In addition to providing training to professionals, TBHI consults with agencies wishing to start their own telebehavioral health programs; credential providers and provide other support services. TBHI’s team of experienced consultants can help with strategic planning, reimbursement, technology choices, legal and ethical risk management and staff development/placement. TBHI also consults with start-up technology companies seeking to develop new verticals in the behavioral health space.
• Non-Profit Sister Organization: Telehealth Institute (TI) – The Telehealth Institute is a California-based non-profit, 501(3)(c) Institute designed to research and develop evidence-based training materials and resources and offer free webinars to the behavioral professional community. As a community service, TI also provides a weekly newsletter and free webinars to a worldwide professional community and donates a portion of its proceeds to grow pro-bono programs. Together, TBHI and TI are dedicated to providing guidance, resources and other support for planning, launching and thriving with telemental health, telebehavioral health, telepsychiatry, telepsychology, distance counseling, online therapy, behavioral telehealth, and mhealth.
  • Mailing Address:
    TBHI/TI
    5173 Waring Road, #124
    San Diego, CA 92120

Why does TBHI offer so many hours of training?
Jumping online is easy. Offering professional services online legally and ethically requires competence in a large number of areas, including clinical issues, cultural sensitivity, documentation, technology choices, telepresence, legal and regulatory mandates, ethical requirements, mobile health and apps, social media, and practice development. Spending 15 to 36 hours gaining knowledge and skills related to managing legal and ethical telepractice is needed to be competent enough to defend oneself if challenged by a licensing board or a civil court. More importantly, effort spent to maximize your telehealth proficiencies will minimize your chance of making clinical mistakes.

TBHI’s professional training is offered both 100% online and in-person. TBHI’s online coursework gives you access 24/7. You will receive a rich, multimedia platform to enhance your enjoyment and learning retention.

• Most of the training is written, following optimal instructional design principles of text-based information with links to primary and secondary source documents, interspersed with images, audio, and video segments to punctuate an important point.
• All video segments follow the American Disabilities Act (ADA) requirements for being available with captions or a transcript.
• To help improve learning comprehension and retention, “Essential Points” in the form of bullet points are provided at the top of many pages, to help you initially grasp the important issues, and give you clues as to which specific topics are considered important enough to re-address in the post-tests.
• The training is also annotated with footnotes to give you the inside story on a number of important issues.
• Courses are self-paced, meaning that you can stop and start it at your convenience.
• A PDF format is available for all print courses if you’d like to carry the PDF to read as you move about your world. Audio and video recordings are available online 24/7.
• TBHI training is self-directed, in that it contains a number of high-quality links to primary source documents throughout the Internet that we’ve assembled for your convenience to deepen your learning.
• The training content has been highly edited by more than 100 reviewers who are professionals in the field, so you can trust that it is accurate, well written and easy-to-comprehend.
• TBHI’s professional training has received many accolades from colleagues, who appreciate our optimized instructional design format as well as the richness of content and superior customer support. To see these comments, look at this testimonial page.
• You can also print your own Certificate from our website.

Completing the TBHI training will require approximately the same number of training time as CME or CE hours offered with each course. A 6-hour course then will take about 6 hours to complete, depending on how quickly you read. A one-hour course typically involves approximately 10,000 words, minus the words involved with presenting audio and video segments. The course evaluation and post-test will require that you come back into the website to respond to a series of questions. Post-tests need to be passed with a grade of 80% or better to get the course completion certificate. (Passing should be no problem. Of more than 8,400 trainees that have come through our doors, only three needed help with post-tests.)

You can complete all training anytime within 6 months from the date of purchase. The “All-Access Pass” will give you up to 12 months of continuous access to all coursework, bonuses and monthly teleconsults for a LIVE- Q&A session with one of TBHI’s Core Faculty. If you need more time to complete your courses, extended access is available for a modest fee in additional increments of 6 months. To extend your access, go to telehealth.org/6-month-extension.

If you’d prefer in-person training, please write to us to request a calendar for TBHI’s live events. If you’d like to invite a TBHI speaker, please submit a speaking request here. 

While it is not mandatory that you earn CE or CME hours to take our training, many professionals are required to have CE or CME hours for their licensure. The Telebehavioral Health Institute has been formally accredited by several groups, but if you are not sure whether your licensing board will accept our training, please send them an email through your Licensing Board’s website and show them this page.

TBHI has a worldwide reputation for excellence in telehealth training amongst healthcare professions. TBHI is proud to have served registered trainees from these 94 countries to date:

1. Afghanistan
2. Albania
3. Andorra
4. Argentina
5. Australia
6. Austria
7. Bangladesh
8. Barbados
9. Belarus
10. Belgium
11. Botswana
12. Brazil
13. British Indian Ocean Territory
14. Bulgaria
15. Cameroon
16. Canada
17. Cayman Islands
18. Chile
19. Colombia
20. Costa Rica
21. Cyprus
22. Denmark
23. Ecuador
24. Egypt
25. France
26. French Guiana
27. Georgia
28. Germany
29. Ghana
30. Gibraltar
31. Greece
32. Guam
33. Guatemala
34. Guyana
35. Hong Kong
36. Hungary
37. India
38. Indonesia
39. Ireland
40. Israel
41. Italy
42. Jamaica
43. Japan
44. Jordan
45. Kenya
46. Korea, Republic Of
47. Macau
48. Macedonia
49. Malaysia
50. Mexico
51. Myanmar
52. Namibia
53. Nepal
54. Netherlands
55. New Zealand
56. Nicaragua
57. Nigeria
58. Norfolk Island
59. Norway
60. Oman
61. Pakistan
62. Panama
63. Peru
64. Philippines
65. Poland
66. Portugal
67. Puerto Rico
68. Qatar
69. Romania
70. Russian Federation
71. Rwanda
72. Saudi Arabia
73. Singapore
74. South Africa
75. Spain
76. Sweden
77. Switzerland
78. Taiwan
79. Tajikistan
80. Tanzania
81. Thailand
82. Togo
83. Trinidad And Tobago
84. Turkey
85. Uganda
86. United Arab Emirates
87. United Kingdom
88. United States
89. United States Minor Outlying Islands
90. Uruguay
91. Venezuela
92. Virgin Islands (U.S.)
93. Zambia
94. Zimbabwe

Whenever a question arises, just send an email to our Contact Center. It will be held until our staff comes in for the next shift. If you need help with a particular course, please be sure to mention the name of the course and supply us with your phone number in case your email address is non-responsive (this happens more often than you might imagine). Our staff is available to answer your questions, change your login, or help you with any other issues. We are also available Monday – Friday from 9 am – 4 pm, Pacific Time (12 pm – 7 pm Eastern time), by email, live chat or telephone appointment. To be given a telephone call from our staff, just send us a note through our Contact Center and suggest a few good times for us to reach you. We’ll be happy to answer your questions or even give you a “walk-through” of our facility if ever you get stuck.

We’ve got you covered. All of our webinars are recorded and available for your convenience for up to 6 months from your date of purchase. You may review the recording through the TBHI Training Center if you are a currently registered TBHI Learner. Please note, it may take up to 6 days after an event for us to update the course with the webinar recording.

Internet Explorer sometimes has problems opening automated certificates, so our first suggestion would be to try Chrome or Firefox as your Internet Browser software. Otherwise, we can email your certificates directly to you as an attachment. Just contact us and be sure to let us know if you’re working under a deadline.

Please contact us by sending a written note here at your convenience. We answer messages during business hours between 9 am – 4 pm, Pacific Time (12 pm – 7 pm Eastern time). If you prefer a telephonic response, just let us know where and when to reach you and we’ll call you. You’ll be answered by our friendly support staff who is grateful for your feedback and a chance to make it right. We truly are here to help.

The TBHI training materials are written in Arial font to facilitate reading with appropriate alt tags for those who prefer or cannot see images. All audio and video recordings are produced with captions for deaf and hard of hearing trainees. PDF’s of all training are available for individuals who prefer to print and read training offline. Accommodations have successfully been developed for individual trainees with more specialized needs upon request. Please let us know your needs by writing to us here.

If anything is amiss, please write to us immediately. We have dedicated staff to help you resolve any questions or issues. For example, if you need someone to walk you through our online programming, we are happy to call you by telephone to explain where you may need to click while you are on your computer. Once through a few of our pages, you will most likely be like our other Trainees and come to understand the logic and convenience of an online, distance learning platform. By the way, we’ve had successful Trainees in their 90’s use our system.

Refunds are available for any course within 30 days of purchase if you are dissatisfied for any reason. However, there will be a $25 refund fee. Please give us the opportunity to remedy any disappointments by writing to us first. Our contact desk is available from Monday to Friday during business hours. If you would like a phone call rather than an email response, please provide times that you’ll be available and where you can be reached, (a telephone number and direct line including extension if any).. Our contact desk is available from Monday to Friday during business hours. If you would like a phone call rather than an email response, please provide times on when and where you can be reached, a mobile number and direct line including extension if any.

Yes, please allow us up to 15 business days to process your refund. Do not send repeated emails.

Choose from one of our telehealth certification programs here or our individual courses here. If you want to customize your own program, please contact us.

Yes, we accept all major forms of credit cards, including Visa, MasterCard, and Discover and PayPal. For alternate payment options, please contact us.

For your convenience, we also offer a monthly payment plan option on select programs. After your initial purchase, your credit card will be set up to be charged for that payment amount on that same date for the remaining payments.

SPECIAL NOTE: Please inform us of credit card changes. As a courtesy, TBHI will make one attempt to contact you for a valid credit card number the first time your monthly payment fails to process because of a credit card change. Subsequent attempts will incur a $45 reinstatement fee. Access to TBHI will be suspended immediately upon credit card failures, requiring a reinstatement fee to be resumed.

To thank you for taking the time to read about our program, please accept our offer of 5% off any single training program purchase at TBHI. Use this coupon code: FAQ5 in our shopping cart. (One discount per person, please.)

Add any training item to your cart. Near the end of the checkout process, select PayPal as your payment option. PayPal will allow you to use your preferred currency in most cases. If you need assistance with currency equivalence or discounted rates for international training, please contact us.