Virtual behavioral health provider Spring Health has announced a new program focused on addressing patients’ social determinants of health (SDoH).
Dubbed Community Care Solution, Spring plans to offer the program through its employer and health plan partners. The new service aims to improve the conditions that impact a patient’s mental health, including their ability to access food, housing, childcare and other factors.
Spring’s offering connects folks in need to programs by integrating 500,000 community resources into its platform.
“We believe we are one of the very few health innovations that deliver equitable health outcomes when we get people engaged in care,” Robin Lloyd, Spring’s chief operating officer, told Behavioral Health Business. “This is about taking that next step to go find the members who aren’t making their way into the Spring Health experience … and making sure that we bring everybody into the experience, knowing that we can deliver clinical improvement and health equitably once they’re here.”
New York-based Spring Health is a B2B digital behavioral health provider that works with employers and health plans to offer mental health support to members. Its services include medication, coaching and therapy. In 2023, Spring Health landed $71 million in a new funding round, bringing its valuation to $2.5 billion.
While Spring Health’s core business is mental health, it has recently expanded its reach in the behavioral health sector. Late last year, Spring announced a partnership with virtual addiction provider Eleanor Health to offer its patients specialized SUD care. The company also teamed up with 2Morrow Health to bring a smoking cessation program to Spring’s platform.
This new initiative, which is available as an enhanced offering to employers and health plans, will now give Spring more resources to help holistically support its patients.
“Even large technology companies have a large portion of their members who, at some point, may experience social needs,” Lloyd said. “These needs exist in almost every employee population.”
Beyond Spring Health
Poverty and a lack of access to resources can significantly impact an individual’s mental health. In fact, 19.4% of people living in poverty report experiencing regular anxiety, according to USA Facts.
Spring Health is hardly the first provider to address social determinants of health. Several players are taking a holistic approach to caring for their patients.
For example, Boston Medical Center (BMC), an academic medical center with 75% of its patients from underserved populations, has several ways of addressing SDoH.
BMC works with internal and external partners to help address patients’ SDoH. In addition to partnerships with local resources, it also has its own food pantry and community garden.
“What are those non-clinical things that really impact individuals’ behavioral health? To us, that’s focusing on social determinants of health,” Deborah R. Goldfarb, director of behavioral health at Boston Medical Center (BMC), previously told BHB. “I call it more social factors of behavioral health. We spent a lot of time and resources at BMC on that piece, and understanding things like housing and transportation, food insecurity, maybe involvement in the criminal legal system, education and employment. That really impacts behavioral health outcomes.”
Morgan Gonzales contributed reporting to this story.