BetterHelp – the direct-to-consumer mental health platform owned by Teladoc Health Inc. (NYSE: TDOC) – posted a strong performance in 2021, as it pulled in $700 million in global revenue.
Billed as the world’s largest online therapy service, BetterHelp’s 2021 revenue figures were a record high for the platform – which was purchased by Teladoc in 2015 for $4.5 million.
More than 2.5 million people have been served by over 20,000 BetterHelp therapists and according to Teladoc CEO Jason Gorevic, more growth is on the way.
“Mental health remains another key priority for us and an area where we continue to see tremendous demand for care,” Gorevic told analysts Tuesday during the company’s fourth quarter (Q4) earnings call for 2021. “Our BetterHelp brand continues to drive significant growth, both in the U.S. and international markets.”
Gorevic told analysts that BetterHelp has particularly benefited from more brand awareness about its services along with effective spending when it comes to customer acquisition costs.
“We’re seeing [the] benefit of BetterHelp’s brand awareness, which enables us to see an increase in the number of members who are signing up organically without any acquisition costs,” Gorevic said.
BetterHelp is also seeing growth from employee assistance programs (EAPs), which is an area of business that Gorevic is bullish on.
“With respect to BetterHelp in the B2B channel, we are finding a fertile environment among EAP plans,” he said to analysts. “The model there is sort of a B2B2C customer acquisition strategy, where BetterHelp gets embedded in an EAP plan and a certain set of interactions are included in the EAP expense.”
During the earnings call, Teladoc reported that its Q4 2021 revenue grew 45% year-over-year to $554.2 million, with full-year 2021 revenue increasing 86% from 2020 to over $2 billion. Total visits to Teladoc in 2021 jumped 38% to 15.4 million.
Gorevic credited mental health visits as playing a significant role in Teladoc’s overall services, which he believes is instrumental to its integrated care philosophy. The company has more than 90 million users on its platform, with roughly a third making use of its mental health resources.
Gorevic estimates that Teladoc’s integrated care approach has resulted in company revenue that is 20-60% higher than that which is generated from members who solely make use of mental health services.
“We find that since mental health is a longitudinal relationship where members typically have several visits with their therapist or psychiatrists, it acts like a gateway for other Teladoc services,” Gorevic told analysts.
During the earnings call, Teladoc issued full year revenue guidance for 2022 ranging from $2.55 to $2.65 billion, which would represent growth of 25-30% from 2021. The company also said that it expects its total visits for 2022 to increase to between 18.5 million and 20 million, while projecting earnings per share loss for the year to fall between $1.40 and $1.60.
“[W]e see a significant opportunity for long-term growth by expanding our relationships and going deeper with our existing clients and members, as we execute against our key strategic priorities across primary care, mental health and chronic care solutions,” Gorevic told analysts.
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