What is TieCare Connect? Understanding the New International Schools Mental Health Support Platform

What is TieCare Connect? Understanding the New International Schools Mental Health Support Platform

TieCare Connect is a new mental health platform introduced by TieCare International in partnership with 1.800MD for the 2025–26 policy year. It offers tele-mental health services to that are accessible globally and are included with the policy at no additional cost to members. Here’s what international schools TieCare customers and their staff need to know.

Key Features

Up to 24 therapy sessions per year with licensed therapists or counselors via secure video calls.
“In-the-Moment Care”: 24/7/365 access to single-session support from a clinician, designed for immediate assistance during difficult or stressful moments.
Multilingual access: Services are available in multiple languages and across more than 70 countries.
No out-of-pocket costs: Sessions are covered by the policy with no deductibles, co-pays, or coinsurance.
Matching process: After an intake session and assessment, members are paired with a clinician based on preferences like language, gender, cultural background, and clinical needs.

What It’s Not

It’s important to understand what TieCare Connect doesn’t offer:

Psychiatry services are not included, so members who need medication will be referred to their primary care provider or another local resource.
Psychological testing and diagnostic assessments (for example, for ADHD or learning differences) are not part of the service.
Direct billing for non-network mental health providers has been removed, which means members cannot directly claim for external therapists unless they are approved and brought into the 1.800MD network.

What’s New (and What’s Changing)

This new model replaces direct mental health access outside the network with a centralized, telehealth-based structure. According to TieCare, the benefits of this approach are speed, simplicity, and consistency. Most members will be able to get an appointment within 24–48 hours, and all care is accessed via the TieCare Connect portal or WhatsApp.

However, it also means less flexibility for those who previously relied on local, in-person therapists or had existing relationships with providers not part of the network. Members can request their preferred therapist be added to the network, but this is subject to TieCare’s approval.

TieCare Connect Q&A with TieCare’s Vice President, Customer Success

We sent a few questions on TieCare Connect to TieCare’s Vice President, Customer Success (Melanie Mazza), and her feedback was as follows:

OWC Question: Can members search and select therapists online? If so, where can they access this information?
TieCare Feedback: Members will not be able to select therapists online – they will complete an “intake session” which is about 50 minutes (and doesn’t count toward the allotted sessions) and the master clinician will select a therapist based on the members needs/wants/requirements. This may include gender, language, location, and experience based on presenting issue(s). Our network includes counselors with a variety of backgrounds and skills including: Treatment specialties (for example: religion/faith-based issues, LGBTQ counseling, physical disabilities, special needs, veteran issues, first responder), Treatment approach (for example: mindfulness, biofeedback/neurofeedback), and Client demographics(for example: children, international assignee, military, LGBTQ, geriatric).

OWC Question: How do members make an appointment?
TieCare Feedback: Appointment setting can be done right through the TieCare Connect portal and/or app (we are currently (June 2025) in implementation phase and are tandemly creating the step-by-step process for our TieCare members).

OWC Question: How long are the sessions?
TieCare Feedback: 50 minutes.

OWC Question: Are there therapists based outside the USA so members on Worldwide excluding the USA can use this platform, or is that not an issue?
TieCare Feedback: The clinicians are available worldwide and any of our members can access this platform whether in or out of the USA (this is also dependent on the mental health benefit the school is choosing/requesting/customizing as well).

OWC Question: What languages are available?
TieCare Feedback: There are over 40,000 clinicians available globally and the languages available are:

English
Dutch
French
Mandarin
Hindi
Indonesian
German
Czech
Slovak
Romanian
Serbian
Slovenian
Bulgarian
Arabic
Spanish

For other language needs, 1.800MD uses a translation service.

READ MORE >>

TieCare Connect Overview

TieCare Connect FAQ

Our Perspective

At One World Cover, we support any effort to improve access to mental health care for faculty and staff – especially services that are easy to access, globally consistent, and affordable. However, we also recognize that a one-size-fits-all approach may not meet everyone’s needs.

Some schools may find this platform works well for their staff. Others – especially those with faculty who already have established mental health support – may want to explore options to maintain more flexible access, particularly for specialist care or in-person therapy.

We encourage schools to speak with us about how this change affects your faculty and how best to communicate it. In some cases, it may be worth exploring a hybrid approach (which TieCare also offers) that maintains some reimbursement flexibility for out-of-network providers.