Talkspace Inc. (Nasdaq: TALK) has teamed up with a patient-provider matching software provider that also assesses the skills and weaknesses of mental health clinicians called Outcome Referrals.

The deal marks the first scaled partnership by Outcome Referrals to institute the Express Access TOP Match system. The system assesses the clinical outcomes of patients and ties that to specific providers to build a scientific basis for matching patients to providers.

In contrast, many matching algorithms simply pair patients and providers based on available time slots. They also tend to rely heavily on the patient’s own self-diagnosis and the clinician’s self-reported strengths and specialties.

While patient matching has already been a part of the Talkspace experience, the move to a scaled partnership with a company that specializes in the practice shows the level of investment the virtual therapy provider is willing to put into it, potentially accelerating the therapeutic alliance between patient and provider.

“Matching the right providers with the core patient needs has always been the center of driving Talkspace outcomes, and this partnership extends our foundational research that the right provider to right patient drives the best outcomes,” Erin Boyd, chief growth officer at Talkspace, said in a news release.

Previously, Outcome Referrals President David Kraus told Behavioral Health Business that most patient matching tools are rarely based on sound science. He noted in an interview in 2023 that “in no other field of medicine does the patient need to diagnose themselves before they get matched. … The other problem is the therapist is then guessing what their strengths are. And we already know that the correlation between what therapists think they’re good at and what they’re actually good at is zero.”

One review found that therapists severely overestimate their skills and that therapists’ skills don’t increase over time, based on clinical outcomes. 

Patients are able to use Express Access through their employer or a QR code provided by their primary care provider. The system then matches them with the Talkspace provider that has the stronger track record with similar patients.

Outcome Referrals will provide other care tracking tools that will in turn become Talkspace’s core outcome-informed care platform.

Outcome Referrals’ tools have been built by years of research and over $30 million of federal and private foundation grants. This includes funding from the privately administered, federally backed Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).

Through funding from PCORI, Outcome Referrals has established other partnerships to scale up their tools. In July, Outcome Referrals announced that it would team up with Grow Therapy, the University of Massachusetts, and the State University of New York (SUNY) Albany to assess 70,000 patient matches and outcomes. 

Several behavioral health providers seek to start therapeutic interventions off on the right foot with patient matching. This includes the largest outpatient mental health provider in the U.S., LifeStance Health Group Inc. (Nasdaq: LFST), which is working on its system. 

Talkspace itself has invested immensely in creating tech tools to enable virtual therapy, including patient matching tools that are similar to Outcome Referrals. In previous public filings, the company has disclosed, “Our machine learning technology also enables us to track the frequency and quality of clinical interactions, allowing us to provide a better therapist match should the patient request a new clinician.”

The company has also previously hinted at potentially licensing its behavioral health-focused foundational large language models based on data that includes 140 million anonymized messages, 6.2 million completed psychological assessments, 1.2 million diagnoses and 4.3 million progress and psychotherapy notes.