Nearly half of patients seek out mental health care from their primary care provider or their insurance network. Most of these patients are disappointed.

While 47% of patients look for mental health providers through their insurance directories, only 17% find care that way, according to research from mental health patient-matching company Headway. Similarly, 35% of patients look for a mental health referral from a medical doctor, but only 16% succeed. 

“Whether it’s the human-to-human connection with a referring PCP, or working with someone within their insurance plan, patients want to find providers through these channels — but there are few who are actually able to do it,” Michael Heckendorn, clinical lead of clinician Education at Headway said in a statement.

New York City-based Headway is a nationwide mental health provider network with 40,000 providers. The company has attracted significant investor attention, most recently closing a $100 million funding round in July, bringing its valuation to $2.3 billion. Its investors include a16z, Accel, Forerunner Ventures, GV, Spark Capital, Thrive Capital and Health Care Service Corporation. 

The company conducted new research that revealed patients’ preferences for seeking and receiving mental health care.

Along with discovering that patients often try – and fail – to access mental health care through medical providers and insurance networks, Headway’s report found that patients’ top consideration when seeking care is whether their provider accepts insurance. More than a third of patients reported that they would stop working with their mental health clinician if they encountered issues with cost or insurance.

“Insurance is important for longevity of care,” Kira Torre, a Headway provider and chief clinical officer of virtual mental health provider Ever After Individual & Family Therapy, said in a statement. “In my group practice, patients who pay out of pocket are less likely to continue booking sessions than those with insurance. Insurance allows patients to afford continued care and to keep coming back.”

This finding aligns with previous research that concluded that insurance status impacts a patient’s likelihood of receiving behavioral health care. A study published in March found that 72.3% of patients with in-network benefits stayed in treatment for at least 180 days, but only 48.1% of out-of-network or uninsured patients stayed in treatment for the same time frame. 

Headway based its research on data from 2,000 patients who were actively receiving mental health care at least once a month. Patients responded to an online survey in Q3 2024, though some data was gathered from a separate study conducted in April 2024. Researchers weighted the sample to reflect U.S. census population data.