New York-based health tech company Headway has expanded its therapist connection platform to California.
The company acts as an intermediary between payers, providers and patients. It partners with health plans to provide mental health practitioners with a suite of technology services to ease administrative burdens on providers and make it easier for patients to access networked care.
Headway does not charge patients or therapists to use its services. Instead, he takes a commission from the insurers he works with.
The company has partnerships in 14 other states and the District of Columbia. It has several partnerships with payers, including several BlueCross BlueShield entities, including Empire BlueCross BlueShield, Carefirst BlueCross BlueShield, and BlueCross NC.
Headway is networked with payers Aetna Inc., Cigna Corp. (NYSE:CI) and UnitedHealthcare.
The move gives Headway access to the most populous state in the nation and the largest market by gross domestic product. It also marks an expansion in a state that collectively fights to connect people with mental illness to health care.
According to Mental Health America’s latest report, up to 63% of California residents with mental illness (AMI) do not receive care, the third worst among the states and the District of Columbia.
Nationwide, 42% of people did not receive care because it was too expensive, according to the Mental Health America report.
The Federal National Institute for Mental Health found that about 21% of Americans (53 million) reported having a mental illness in 2020.
“California’s mental health care crisis could happen anywhere and reflects our country’s broken system,” Headway founder and CEO Andrew Adams said in a press release.
Headway uses its software to facilitate better connections between providers, patients and payers.
For vendors, this eases the administrative burden of accreditation, scheduling, invoicing, and revenue cycle management. Headway’s patient user interface allows for detailed searches based on multiple criteria such as race, gender, location, and specialty. Health plans can use the platform to expand their mental health networks and gain additional care data.
Nationally, its software facilitates approximately 2.5 million appointments per year; is used by over 20,000 accredited mental health service providers; and records an average wait time to first appointment of 5.9 days. Some patients can present themselves to a provider in as little as 48 hours in some cases, the statement said.
Clinicians no longer have to deal with the business side of behavioral health and just be clinicians – provide services, treatments to their patients, then get paid through Headway by CareFirst
Oleg Tarkovsky, Director of Behavioral Health Services at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield
A technological solution that facilitates the admission and booking process of therapists is of universal importance. But, it’s a matter of legal hazard for California-based providers.
The state legislature has required all mental health or substance use disorder providers to complete initial appointments for in-network patients within 10 days after a patient in asked one. Senate Bill 221 became law a year ago and went into effect July 1.
Over the past month or so, Headway has built a diverse network of mental health practitioners. Here are some statistics about Headway providers:
- 60% are not white
- 30% are fluent in a language other than English, including Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, Korean and Tagalog
- 25% meet LGBTQIA+ needs
- 15% are Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI)
The company’s approach of being a link between payers, patients and providers seemed to appeal to investors.
In May 2021, Headway landed a $70 million Series B funding round led by venture capital fund Andreessen Horowitz. The round also included Thrive Capital, GV and Accel. Since its founding in 2019, it has raised $100.5 million, according to cruchbase.com.
Earlier this year, CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield – a nonprofit payer organization covering 3.6 million members and employers in Maryland, Washington, DC and Northern Virginia – turned to Headway to help its 16,000 behavioral health providers to better meet the demands of its network.
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield found that many independent providers lacked bandwidth and administrative support, said Oleg Tarkovsky, director of behavioral health services at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.
CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield has awarded a “huge contract” to Headway to better organize and support the CareFirst behavioral health network.
“Clinicians no longer have to deal with the business side of behavioral health and just be clinicians — provide services, provide treatment to their patients, and then get paid through Headway by CareFirst,” Tarkovsky said.