FasPsych Telepsychiatry Staffing Review: A Flexible Option for Healthcare Organizations

When a hospital has an unfilled psychiatry position, you still have patients who require evaluations, med checks and follow-up care. The emergency department needs timely specialist input, and a correctional facility needs to arrange for patients to consistently make psychiatric appointments in a secure environment.

FasPsych views these issues through the lens of a staffing/service-integration company, rather than simply offering a video visit platform for sale. FasPsych bridges the gap by linking healthcare organizations with psychiatrists and psychologists, with a variety of scheduling/payment options.

Its strongest proposition is helping organizations fit remote psychiatric coverage into different clinical workflows.

FasPsych

4.3 / 5

Verdict: Strong pick for healthcare administrators looking for flexible remote psychiatric coverage, with provider match and clinical integration support.

Scores are based on the analysis of published service levels, billing choices, implementation details and user reviews. The overall score represents the average of the 5 scores above (rounded).

In This Review

• Who FasPsych Serves
• What the Staffing Service Includes
• How Implementation and Technology Work
• Pricing and Contract Flexibility
• What Works and What Does Not
• What Public Feedback Shows
• Final Verdict

Who FasPsych Serves

FasPsych provides hospitals, outpatient clinics and other facilities with remote psychiatric staffing by licensed psychiatrists and behavioral health clinicians. In addition to traditional doctor’s offices, FasPsych’s list of partner categories includes emergency departments, correctional health, residential treatment centers and community health clinics.

A hospital may require an emergent consult or planned inpatient rounding. An outpatient clinic may require periodic visits on specific days. A jail med director may want to coordinate psych evaluations without having to consistently transport patients.

The American Psychiatric Association’s correctional telepsychiatry resource lists clinical as well administrative issues specific to jails and prisons. While remote services can solve a staffing issue there still needs to be suitable patient arrangements, clinical workflow, and coordination.

FasPsych is particularly well suited to organizations looking for continuous clinical coverage. Individual consultations are available as published options.

What the Staffing Service Includes

The staffing page lists different methods to utilize psychiatric experts. FasPsych provides options for both regular and emergency clinical hours, instead of boxing every company into one appointment.

• Psychiatric consults: Phone consults with attendings, video evaluation, routine appointments, urgent appointments
• Virtual rounding: Psychiatry consults, follow-up, and monitoring for hospital and other inpatient facilities remotely
• Remote medical directors: Psychiatric leadership and clinical oversight for organizations requiring that role.
• Psychiatrist supervision or collaboration with psychiatric nurse practitioners, when necessary to comply with any applicable state regulations.

FasPsych also markets services for adult, child and adolescent psychiatry, medication management and other behavioral health services. Availability of an appropriate clinician is based on the requested state, specialty and desired schedule.

The company claims to have a nationwide network of providers and that clinicians are licensed in the states they treat patients in. However, its homepage clarifies they have partnerships in nearly every state. That does not guarantee every specialty or shift is available in all 50 states.

How Implementation and Technology Work

Identifying a clinician is just one step for an administrator. Credentialing, scheduling, documentation and patient access all need to flow with your organization’s clinical workflow.

One thing that FasPsych mentioned was talking through each organizations’ clinical needs as well as schedule, then pairing them with providers that are licensed in that state and accommodating coverage.

FasPsych claims its platform can integrate with existing EHR systems, subject to local setup, lessening the demand to operate another recordkeeping database. FasPsych also promises technical assistance and secure videoconferencing.

The appeal helps you with staffing services plus technology support instead of having to recruit clinicians and figure out how to create a remote-care system all on your own.

While FasPsych makes implementation sound simple, there is no defined timeline for assured deployment on their public-facing information. Credentialing of providers, local mandates and facility readiness could impact timing.

Telepsychiatry guidelines from the American Psychiatric Association cover clinical, technical, reimbursement and legal issues as well. A medical staffing partner can help you navigate implementation while still holding you responsible for those duties.

Pricing and Contract Flexibility

FasPsych does not have a standard rate that covers all types of staffing. FasPsych has billing models designed for different coverage needs.

Its Paypage details hourly rates, blocks of clinical hours, per consult or fee for service rates, per diem and on call agreements. FasPsych states there is no upfront cost to join their network and organizations pay for services once care is being delivered. Some arrangements involve purchasing blocks of hours in advance.

The billing model option is an intentional strength. However, there is nothing in the published information to demonstrate that FasPsych will be less expensive than direct hire or another staffing company. Buyers must weigh out the cost and terms of the coverage they need.

What Works and What Does Not

What works

• Wide institutional fit: Documented service array spans hospitals, outpatient programs and nontraditional settings of care.
• Flexible coverage: Scheduled, urgent, part-time and other staffing plans allow for a variety of clinical volumes.
• Operational support: Provider matching, electronic health record (EHR) integration and supported advertised technology may lessen the work it takes for a facility to operate alone.
• Multiple billing models: Organizations can structure coverage around expected use instead of one model of purchasing.

What does not

• Not its own EHR solution: FasPsych works with current EHR systems, rather than selling EHR software. Less of an issue if your facility already has a records system in place.
• Specialties covered: FasPsych specializes in psychiatry and associated behavioral health care. If you are looking to staff multiple disciplines that do not deal directly with psychiatry, you may want to look at another recruiter.
• Remote-first model: The service provides telepsychiatry almost exclusively, but mentions in-office and hybrid services. If your organization is primarily looking for ongoing, on-site psychiatric staff, double check to see if this is an option.

What Public Feedback Shows

FasPsych publishes selected testimonials from organizational partners praising its clinicians, responsiveness and working relationships.

There is another set of Google generated reviews for FasPsych with both good and bad reviews. It sounds like they had different relationships with the company, making those reviews insufficient evidence of what a hospital/client experience will be like just from reading those.

The testimonials you see from named partners give you a little window into relationship dynamics. However, those are testimonials chosen by FasPsych. Neither they nor the reviews you see publicly report a standard duration until launch or the availability of a particular clinician.

Final Verdict

FasPsych provides a solution for those organizations seeking psychiatric staffing resources but do not want to staff independently to recruit clinicians and manage all aspects of telepsychiatric coverage. Demonstrated strengths include its breadth of care settings, psychiatric service models, and payment structures available to meet varying volumes of work.

Especially relevant for administrators seeking recurring or urgent remote coverage to supplement existing clinical groups. Service should be considered a staffing partnership model with clinician availability, contracts and implementation made clear for the specific facility.

If you run a hospital, jail or clinic and need flexible telepsychiatry staffing options, FasPsych should be on your short list.