Comment by alfanick
2 years ago
"All of our Shimmer ADHD Coaches are licensed or certified mental health professionals or have extensive experience with ADHD & undergo our Shimmer Coach Training program developed alongside our clinical advisors Dr. Amin Azzam (MD, MA), Dr. Anil Chacko (PhD), and our Head ADHD Coaching Psychologist Xenia Angevin."
What is "undergo our Shimmer Coach Training program developed alongside our clinical advisors Dr. Amin Azzam (MD, MA), Dr. Anil Chacko (PhD), and our Head ADHD Coaching Psychologist Xenia Angevi"?
Are they doctors or not? Psychologists or not? AI or not? There is so much mumbo jumbo and scams and pseudo medicine in psychology related issues, that this sentence simply reads as "yeah trust us, some of us are doctors, people who are doing the work, are not".
Also amount of usage of word "coaching" is abusive. Are coaches respectable? Do they have credentials? Why coaches and not psychologist or psychotherapist?
Appreciate this question, it's one we've gotten a lot and quite frankly I agree we haven't nailed the best way to articulate it. To answer a few of your questions... - We don't use psychologists or psychotherapists as the front-line helper because there is a severe shortage of them and our main goal is accessibility. There is a provider shortage (psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, etc.) in the US and most places in the world - Depending on someone's severity, helpers can include parents/teachers, peer support specialists, mentors, coaches, therapists, psychiatrists, the list goes on (I tried to broadly categorize from least to most intensive); our service does not aim to support the most severe. Anyone who screens with high degree of Mh impairment is not suggested to use Shimmer (and we have screening in the onboarding process) - Frankly, depending who you ask, you'll get a different answer for "are coaches respectable". Coaching is a modality that is "up and coming" because of (1) the need for more providers and subclinical support services, and (2) the credentialing / reimbursement models are evolving... see next point: - We align our model most closely to Health & Wellness Coaching, which is estimated to be reimbursed by next year: https://www.wellcoachesschool.com/post/medicare-moves-advanc...
Overall though, we use PhDs/psychiatrists/master-level coaches to supervise, create protocols, trainings, etc. and use coaches to deliver. (Not AI). Our coaches are either credentialed by ICF (International Coaching Federation) like BetterUp or Ginger or Lyra's coaches, NB-HWC (National Board - Health & Wellness Coaching), or have masters-level psych degree and go through our training.
Happy to expand on any of the above!
You say you haven't found a way to articulate it. You should articulate it exactly the way you do in this comment.
You are not providing licensed medical services. Just come out and say it, since it's true. Yes, saying that will cause people to distrust you, and well it should. You are right about there being a shortage, but there is no substitute for a real doctor.
That said, being upfront about it instead of trying to beat around the bush or make excuses doesn't help you. It only serves to make you even more untrustworthy. Your attempts to obscure the fact that you aren't providing real medical service only suggests that you know in your heart that what you are providing is not the same. If you believed your "coaches" were good enough, you wouldn't have to do anything at all to hide the fact that they were not real doctors. You could just come out and say it.
Shimmer is NOT clinical and we do NOT provide licensed medical services. We are most definitely not trying to substitute a real doctor. Full stop. We hope that is clear in all of our communications and website, and do NOT try to obscure that.
However, we do a lot of work to work with the right experts (which include clinicians, psychiatrists, etc.) to ensure what we do it safe, follows best practice, is science-backed, and is effective. And we definitely want to highlight this work that has been done and the importance of it.
We will update the language to better reflect this immediately.
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> quite frankly I agree we haven't nailed the best way to articulate it.
You've certainly nailed the best way to articulate "we haven't worked out how to best phrase our bullshit to fly under the radar" though.
We've just changed our language with the support of our care team and the folks in this thread! Super open to more suggestions if it can better represent what we're doing (ADHD Coaching)
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Looks like the same bait and switch Dr. K (Healthy Gamer) did. Put a real MD on the poster, and once they sign up hook your customers with people with 3 weeks of "professional training".
But honestly, that can be a win. A good process (with a person you resonate with) can go further than a medical degree. Personal opinion, based on lots of experience.
Thanks for this comment—you've nailed it. The service we're providing in it's very nature is not medical and instead encompasses support functions like accountability, celebration of the member, helping the member feel "seen and heard", etc. Many of our members have not got that from their doctors, nor do they expect it given the doctors role. We advocate for layering the services you need together (e.g. I have a doctor, psychiatrist, coach, right now.) and our coaches work hard to communicate the role of a coach and the boundaries.
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I think calling Dr. K a bait and switch is a bit unfair. They make it very explicit before signing up that it’s not medical care and that it’s just a coach and not a mental health professional.
Unless they changed the onboarding process, it’s made obvious to the user what it is.
You're absolutely right about the onboarding process. It's very clear that Shimmer does not provide medical care. I think some people just don't realize that doctors exist outside of medical practices. "MD" is a title earned by completing a medical degree, not a job title. There's no reason to assume someone with an MD is acting in the capacity of medication-dispensing doctor at all times. Medical expertise is clearly relevant for the position of "clinical advisor" for an ADHD-related service. Many, if not most, Shimmer users use coaching as an add-on to first line medical treatments and/or therapy. It makes perfect sense to have someone on board who's well-versed in the medical side of ADHD treatment. Operating an ADHD coaching program without someone knowledgeable in that area would be downright dangerous. I'm glad Shimmer has a MD on their team to cover all the bases.
We definitely are not trying to pass as a medical service. However, we do our due diligence to make sure we have medical staff on board to advise us on our protocols, services, train our staff, supervise our staff, and to stand in if there is any escalation needed. We hope it's clear Dr. Anil himself is not coaching and very happy to make things more clear by adding his title to the front of the card.
It's absurd to claim that you're not trying to pass as a medical service when you're offering coaching for a neurological condition.
You can argue medical vs healthcare or whatever semantics you want but if it quacks like a duck it's a duck.
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> We definitely are not trying to pass as a medical service.
> HSA/FSA-eligible.
Try harder?
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Just recently found about his youtube channel and have found his content to be quite beneficial. Did not know that he'd done this. Can I read about this anywhere? There seems to be a lot of folks who are critical about him.
I don't know about the details, but even simply from watching HealthyGamerGG videos (which are quite good), the way he pushes his group counseling service(?) using essentially volunteers(??) who are licensed through him does seem suspect. Guess enshittification applies even to internet individuals.
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What I've seen from most of these services is they essentially hire independent contractors with experience in a related field. They "train" them with a series of required videos then send them on their way.
Not saying that's what this is doing, but that's what this whole industry does. Unfortunately, there simply aren't enough health care providers.
I think people often forget how poor the quality of an average health care provider truly is.
I would argue that most therapist are incompetent, undertrained, and potentially more damaging than helpful. Of course, there are absolute diamonds in the roughs, but they are few and far between in my (and many others') experience.