A growing number of investor-backed start-ups are trying to meet the growing demand for mental health treatment, a trend that has been amplified by the pandemic. Harry Ritter, the doctor who founded Alma in 2017, said the company is looking to enable independent professionals to maintain their practices and join major insurance networks.
“How can we help these amazing human beings, who are mostly small business owners, be more successful in the modern health care system?” he said.
Mental health providers pay a fee to join Alma, and the company also receives transaction fees on patient visits it facilitates. Alma has contracted with 8,000 mental health professionals and has agreements with insurers, including Cigna and units of CVS Health Corp. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. that therapists can access.
Historically, it has been difficult to get health plans to cover mental health care. Insurers sometimes place limits on mental health care that don’t apply to other health care, and their provider directories can be notoriously inaccurate, making it difficult to find doctors who are accepting new patients. Many doctors only accept patients who can pay cash.
Insurers are experiencing a “fundamental shift in attitude and appreciation of the importance of mental health care,” Ritter said.
Health insurance companies are turning to Alma to expand their offerings of mental health professionals. Cigna clients “need more attention in the behavioral health space than is currently readily available in the marketplace,” said Tom Richards, who runs Cigna Ventures.
Optum Ventures, part of UnitedHealth, is also an investor in Alma. With the new funding, the company has raised some $220 million to date.
The rapid growth of online mental health startups has drawn scrutiny of some of their practices. Some pharmacies and insurers have cut companies like Cerebral Inc. and Donate over concerns about how their doctors prescribe controlled substances. While Alma does have some doctors and nurse practitioners on its platform who can prescribe medications, prescriptions are handled outside of the platform and the company does not dispense medications, Ritter said.
Ross Devor, a partner at Thoma Bravo, described Alma as a “three-sided market” that benefits patients, doctors and insurers. The technology connects patients with doctors more effectively and can “capture outcome data that will raise the bottom line for care payers and hopefully lower the overall cost of care” as access expands. to behavioral health care, he said in an email.
Ritter, a veteran of insurer Oscar Health, founded Alma with the goal of providing shared physical spaces for therapists to meet with patients along with software and a community to support their businesses. Alma had just opened her second space in New York City when Covid shut down in-person tours.
Mental health care quickly moved online and largely stayed there. While almost no behavioral health care was provided online in the US before Covid, about 40% of outpatient visits for mental health and substance use disorders were virtual during the first few months of the pandemic, according to Kaiser Family Foundation. That proportion only decreased slightly in the following year.
Alma closed its physical spaces during the pandemic, losing about 65% of its revenue, Ritter said. Now 90% of sessions booked through Alma are virtual.
Ayana Ali, a licensed clinical social worker in Brooklyn, New York, had a part-time therapy practice for 16 years, but she always had other jobs. When her union position was eliminated in January, she took up her practice full-time. Ali said that it was only possible because of Alma.
The company allowed him to accept insurance for the first time. She also connected her with patients in her area of focus: professional women of color dealing with severe anxiety or pregnancy loss.
“Alma provides opportunities for you to exist in your niche in a way that I haven’t seen before,” Ali said.
More stories like this are available at bloomberg.com
