Lyra Health, a digital behavioral health unicorn that helps employers connect workers with mental health services, has added new preventative, self-guided solutions to supplement its current offerings.
The Burlingame, California-based company has mostly built its business around using intelligent matching technology to pair members with services available to and best suited for them. It partners with behavioral health providers, who deliver those services, to make it all possible.
Lyra’s new Preventative Care Suite will supplement those offerings, acting as another weapon in the company’s arsenal to improve employees’ overall mental health and wellbeing.
The new offerings will give users access to self-guided online exercises and lessons to help them deal with issues such as stress, relationships and life transitions at their own pace. Those short-term care plans are personalized for each member and developed by mental health coaches, who are also available through Lyra’s Preventative Care Suite.
Members can choose to do video or live messaging sessions with those coaches. Plus, employers can offer their workers access to other on-demand mental health tools such as Calm and myStrength.
The new services are best suited to address mild to moderate behavioral health issues and prevent them from spiralling into bigger issues. But even if the severity of the problem escalates, Lyra has members covered, as it offers the full spectrum of mental health benefits for employers and their workers.
Lyra’s new offerings come after a year filled with fundraising for the company and for digital behavioral health in general. In 2020, the company’s valuation pushed above $1 billion, making it one of the few unicorns in the behavioral health space. Plus, it has already announced another $187 million in Series E funding since then.
The coronavirus is driving much of the investment in digital behavioral health, as Americans are grappling with heightened levels of stress and anxiety. At the same time, they’re facing challenges accessing treatment through existing health care benefits programs.
While about 48% of workers say their mental health has affected their ability to do their job over the past year, 56% of those with a diagnosable mental health condition haven’t gotten treatment in that time frame, according to a recent report from Lyra on the state of mental health at work.
On top of that, 45% of employees who did find care paid for it out of pocket. Meanwhile, another 31% weren’t sure if they had mental health care benefits at all.
“Effective mental health care is vital for productive organizations, especially as we continue to deal with a global pandemic,” Joe Grasso, clinical director of partnerships at Lyra, said in a press release announcing the survey results. “Human resources and benefits leaders can have a significant and lasting impact on their organizations by changing the conversation in their companies, and championing access to mental health care for their people and teams.”
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