Introduction
There has been a significant rise in new tech platforms offering mental health services. Who hasn’t gotten the numerous recruiting flyers, emails, and even texts? Let’s talk about who they are and how they impact our field.
With hundreds of millions to invest, venture capital groups are spending big on customer advertising, high-paid executives, and therapist salaries-yet many of these companies are crashing. Why?
Lack of Financial Stability
One of the recent examples is Foresight Mental Health, which had to lay off 20% of its employees (500 therapists) and hire a new CEO to turn the company around after they nearly ran out of cash. Customer advertising, therapist recruitment, and high-paid executives can lead to overspending.
Read More About Foresight Here
Illegal and Unethical Practices
There have been numerous headlines about illegal and unethical practices. Companies like BetterHelp and Cerebral have been accused of violating ethical regulations.
Betterhelp is being investigated for using the profiles of therapists in private practice to direct clients to the Betterhelp website in a bait and switch scheme. This is directly impacting therapists in private practice.
Now Betterhelp is facing a class action lawsuit from its investors.
Cerebral is embroiled in controversy over its prescribing practices with accusations that providers are pushed to medicate and diagnose for profit.
Read more about this here. | More Information
Profit Over People
Mental health apps reportedly collect, mine, and disseminate private client information to data brokers.
See the proposal from senators:
Warren, Booker, Wyden Call on Mental Health Apps to Provide Answers on Data Privacy and Sharing Practices that May Put Patients’ Data at Risk of Exploitation
Read More: Article 1 | Article 2
What does the future look like?
We can look to other industries to see how this plays out. Let’s take a look at the venture capital playbook. Spend money to enter a market. Once market dominance is achieved by buying the labor force and small businesses, they have achieved “consolidation,” which gives them control. Once control is established, the season of big spending is over and we could see price increases for customers and wage slashes for therapists.
What will happen to therapist autonomy?
Historically, psychotherapy has been a space led by providers. The landscape has been solo-providers, who hang their shingle and set their own rates, or small groups owned by clinicians and take insurance.
Many therapists operate in a solo provider status and are female, controlling their wages and rates.
Tips for providers:
- Know who owns the company you’re applying to.
- Are there any provider owners? Provider CEO’s?
- Do they tie your wages to clinical outcomes?
- Do they pay the full rate they initially offered? Or are there hidden requirements?
- Ask how they handle client data to ensure HIPAA compliance.
- Look up reviews and news articles.
Current Examples:
Who owns the platform Alma?
Cigna/Optum and a tech firm. Who wants an insurance company as your employer? Since when do insurance companies put providers first?
Read More Here | More on Alma | United Health is Funding Mood Health
Who owns PATH? ( source, Crunchbase)
A tech firm.
They’ve raised 102 million from investors to start a mental health platform. But do they have any clients?
Lyra Health
We must protect our sovereignty
Who are we giving our power to? Right now, we have the power. We can use our clinical training to determine how we deliver care. We choose our therapy modality, frequency of sessions, length of sessions, when to terminate, etc. In private practice, we set our own rates. We are the guardians of ethical care.
Let’s keep the conversation going to ensure that the provider’s voice is strong and our autonomy is not impacted by investors outside of our field.
