Value-based behavioral healthcare company Talkiatry raises $130M

Talkiatry is in-network with over 60 health plans, including Aetna and Blue Cross Blue Shield

One in five U.S. adults lives with a mental illness, but more than 160 million Americans live in areas with mental health professional shortages, a problem that's predicted to worsen by 2030. Barriers to care access including the cost of treatment, proximity to care, and wait times force some people to forego treatment entirely. Of those adults who do get care, just 31% believe their mental health is "excellent," a 12% drop during the past 20 years.These problems have coalesced to cause a nationwide mental health crisis.

"Although the mainstreaming of telehealth has given Americans more behavioral care options, it is simply not enough. The prevalence of mental illness is increasing against a bleak backdrop of a major physician shortage," Robert Krayn, CEO and co-founder of Talkiatry, a company that partners with insurance companies so that more psychiatrists will be able to provide in-network care. 

"We continue to see strong demand for psychiatry led care, part of that is that our services are in-network, high quality, and affordable. The stigma surrounding mental health care is also shrinking. Finally, we can reach more people in places that were previously underserved, including rural areas and healthcare deserts, through telehealth." 

Talkiatry has created a value-based behavioral healthcare model that expands access to treatment while improving outcomes and generating savings. Now, the company is looking to expand its model for behavioral health, so it announced a $130 million equity and debt financing round on Tuesday.

The equity round was led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from Perceptive Advisors, and the debt financing was provided by Banc of California. This brings its total raised to date to $245 million, with previous participation from investors including Left Lane Capital and blisce/.

Launched in 2020, Talkiatry works with both insurance companies and providers. On the insurance side, they get access to high quality providers, as well as data on how to reduce costs, how to get people better faster, and how to detect conditions. At the same time, it gives providers compensation-related, support related, or technology related tools, including the ability to choose patient populations that they're best suited to treat, as well as the ability to choose the best modality of care, whether it's telemedicine or in-office visits.

Talkiatry is in-network with more than 60 health plans, including Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, United Healthcare, Cigna, and Humana, covering more than 70% of commercial lives in the U.S. The company also employees all of its providers, which now number over 300 full-time, licensed psychiatrists and 100 therapists who serve patients with conditions including anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, OCD, PTSD, and more, across the country. The company has reached more than one million patient visits.

While working with one leading national health plan, Talkiatry's providers achieved a 68% lower hospitalization rate, 32% fewer emergency room visits, and generated approximately $700 in savings per member per month on a total cost of care basis. Additionally, a study of Talkiatry patients also found that after an average of five appointments over 15 weeks, 67% no longer had clinically significant anxiety symptoms, and 62% no longer had clinically significant depression symptoms.

"While Value-Based Care has been a buzzword in healthcare for years now, behavioral health providers have yet to create a viable VBC model. This is because there is little outcomes and cost savings data, combined with a lack of physician-focused models, which prevented health plans from establishing creative and scalable risk-based payment models," Krayn said.

"What we’ve been able to do is create a proven value-based behavioral health care model that expands access to quality treatment while improving outcomes and generating savings based on our own data. To the best of our knowledge, no other psychiatry provider has been able to do this."

The Series C investment will be used to fuel the expansion of Talkiatry's value-based care model, with the goal of reducing total cost of care, improving health outcomes, and producing  savings for patients, health plans, and health system or provider group partners.

"We will continue to build deeper relationships with our insurance partners. We also want to make sure we’re the best place for physicians to work, and we’ve based our practice on being physician-led. Finally, we want to be the best place for patients to get care, and our focus on quality supports this mission," explained Krayn.

"As we go deeper and deeper into VBC, we’re going to provide a wider array of behavioral health services across the acuity spectrum. This is so we can seamlessly transition patients between levels of acuity, and make sure that they are properly cared for throughout their treatment journey." 

(Image source: talkiatry.com)