Optum therapist: using Optum Behavioral Health or your Optum EAP for online therapy in Michigan

It is 9 p.m., the kids are finally asleep, and you are scrolling your employer’s benefits site looking for help with the tension at home. You land on a page with an Optum logo, a link to something called Live and Work Well, and the words “Employee Assistance Program.” Is that your insurance? A free counseling benefit? Both? Here is how the Optum pieces fit together.

Can I see Iryna with Optum?

Yes. Sessions with Iryna Morhunova-Sutton, LLMFT, can be billed to Optum through her group practice’s billing system. Two things shape your cost: the plan your employer bought and which Optum benefit a session falls under. Both also affect whether a partner or family can join covered sessions.

What Optum Behavioral Health is

Optum is the health services division of UnitedHealth Group and is headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Its behavioral health benefits are provided through its subsidiary, United Behavioral Health, which operates under the Optum brand. That is why the same benefit might be called Optum, Optum Behavioral Health or United Behavioral Health depending on which document you are reading. If your plan papers use the UBH name, our United Behavioral Health page explains that side of it.

Two different Optum benefits: EAP and behavioral health coverage

Many people with Optum have one or both of these, and they are easy to mix up.

Your Employee Assistance Program (EAP)

Optum describes its Emotional Wellbeing Solutions program as a modern employee assistance program. It offers master’s-level specialists by phone 24 hours a day for in-the-moment support, help connecting to other resources, and support for everyday life, which Optum says includes marriage, grief and work-related situations. An EAP is purchased by your employer, so what it includes is set by that employer’s contract.

Your behavioral health benefit

This is the mental health part of your health plan. It is where ongoing outpatient therapy is usually covered, along with your plan’s deductible, copays or coinsurance. When you want regular sessions with a therapist over time, this is the benefit to ask about.

A useful question for your employer or Optum: “Should I start with my EAP, or go straight to my behavioral health benefit for ongoing therapy?” Some people use EAP support first and then move to their health plan benefit. Others skip the EAP entirely. Either path is reasonable; the point is to know which benefit a session is billed to before it happens, so the cost does not surprise you.

Using liveandworkwell.com, the Optum member site

Optum’s member website, Live and Work Well (liveandworkwell.com), describes itself as a private support tool for people whose company, organization or state provides behavioral health, EAP, work-life or wellness benefits through Optum. Optum owns the site and administers the benefits. It includes a provider search, and some employers give members an access code to sign in, which you can get from your HR team or benefits materials.

If you cannot find an access code, the behavioral health number on your card reaches the same benefits. Use the site or that number to check:

• Whether outpatient therapy is covered and what you will pay per session.
• Whether telehealth visits are covered for a provider located in Michigan.
• Whether your deductible applies and how much is left.
• Whether family psychotherapy codes 90847 and 90846 are covered.

Can I use Optum for couples counseling?

It depends on which benefit and which plan. Optum’s own description of its EAP support includes marriage among the everyday-life situations it helps with. For ongoing couples therapy billed to your health plan, coverage usually follows medical necessity: joint work is more likely to be paid when it is part of treating someone’s diagnosis than when the goal is the relationship by itself. Read does insurance cover couples therapy for the full picture.

Secure video, Michigan only

There is no office and no in-person option; sessions are by secure video. Since Iryna is licensed in Michigan, you join from inside the state. That flexibility helps if you work odd shifts in Detroit or live an hour from the nearest therapist up north.

Reach out when you are ready

For couples therapy, family therapy or individual support, request an appointment and mention your plan when you reach out. Say whether you are using an Optum EAP or your behavioral health benefit. See every plan on the insurance overview.