Thriveworks has named a new CEO to help the company build out its mental health capabilities and attract relationships with payers, health systems and primary care groups.
The company’s newly minted CEO, Dr. Dan Frogel, told Behavioral Health Business that the company will continue to “do what Thriveworks has always done best” in its direct-to-consumer segment while focusing on establishing enterprise-level relationships.
“Our internal terminal research has shown us that patients and clients activate their care [through] recommendations from primary care doctors, from their health systems, from payers and word of mouth,” Frogel said. “Formalizing relationships with large groups, with payers, is a large area of focus of ours right now.”
Lynchburg, Virginia-based Thriveworks is an outpatient mental health provider for people of all ages offering in-person and virtual care. Founded in 2008, Thriveworks has more than 340 offices and over 2,200 clinicians nationwide.
The company is backed by Wellington Management and $340.2 million in equity funding raised in 2021. Thriveworks raised additional funds in 2022 but did not disclose the amount.
Thriveworks diversified its patient base in 2022, expanding to treat children ages 12 and younger. The company has previously partnered with direct-to-consumer (DTC) insurance platform SelectQuote and its Population Health patient engagement model as well as
The company’s former CEO, William Furness, stepped down in October 2023 after just under two years on the job. Furness now serves as CEO to the integrated research organization Centricity Research.
“It’s with mixed emotions that I share that I’ve decided to move on from Thriveworks,” Furness wrote in a LinkedIn post. “I am incredibly proud of what the Thriveworks team has accomplished in recent years.”
During Furness’s tenure, the company focused on investing in its technology tools, including a digital booking and intake management platform and clinician training.
Frogel is the co-founder of urgent care provider CityMD, where he previously served as its president. He started his career as an attending physician in emergency medicine before transitioning to urgent care.
His clinical experience and time spent working with health systems, large provider groups and payers, in particular, have helped prepare him for the CEO role at Thriveworks.
“I have had a bird’s eye view and an in-the-trenches view of how to … make a great physician experience and a great patient experience,” Frogel said. “Just knowing where the patients are coming from and what they need out of a quality organization. Those are parts of my career that really prepared me for a role like this.”
In the short term, Frogel plans to shore up Thriveworks’ foundation, including revenue cycle management, patient experience, schedule efficiency and access efficiency.
With a more forward-looking mindset, he aims to understand the specific requirements and priorities of the partner organizations the company hopes to engage and meet those needs through enhanced clinical accountability.
“Thriveworks was founded and gained a lot of success in the direct-to-consumer marketing channels,” Frogel said. “It has started to evolve that into more of a partnership model on top of all the wonderful things that we do on the direct-to-consumer side. The way to do that is to build … an organization that has true intrinsic value to the vertical.”
In the long term, Frogel plans to provide care with a holistic integrated approach that combines physical and mental health. He intends to demonstrate clinical excellence to payers and co-manage patients with payers, health systems and primary care groups.
Thriveworks may also explore value-based reimbursement arrangements in the future, Frogel said.
Frogel sees maintaining a diverse clinician population as a part of maintaining a high quality of care but says that staffing woes are not a significant challenge for the provider. For Thriveworks, which employs its clinicians directly, retention is a higher priority.
Thriveworks’s Emily Matorin, chief operating officer and former interim CEO, will remain with the company as its COO.
