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Episode 8 of the Healthcare Beans podcast
Mental health took a nosedive during the pandemic. We need to expand access to mental healthcare in our communities, ASAP. To meet this need, telehealth companies that provide virtual psychotherapy are growing very fast. In particular, I’m rooting for Talkspace therapy.
Episode Takeaways:
(1) Have you ever seen a strong, confident, clear-headed person break down in front of you? No one is guaranteed good mental health across time. One thing I learned from the pandemic is to never assume your friends and family are OK based on past appearances.
(2) A mental telehealth app called Talkspace recently signed a deal with the city of Reno Nevada to provide psychotherapy for its residents. Here’s a good, comprehensive review of Talkspace.
(3) The Reno Talkspace therapy deal can set the stage for other cities to make similar deals with telehealth providers. I’m betting it will!
~ James
Transcript
Hello and thanks for catching episode #8 of Healthcare Beans, I’m your host James Haven. I want to share a strange experience I had during the pandemic, that really hit me in terms of the poor state of mental health in our communities. Now, we’re all hyper aware of how bad depression and anxiety has gotten during the pandemic – it’s common knowledge and supported by public health data (no surprises here).
But what did surprise me is that it’s not only people with existing mental conditions who are suffering – people who (in the past) typically enjoyed good mental health are also struggling. And that means we really can’t make assumptions around people who look fine or appear to be happy, thinking to ourselves, “oh that person’s okay”.
So, a friend of mine (she’s a psychotherapist) lives in a nice home, in a nice upscale neighborhood with her husband (great guy by the way), her 2 small children and a family dog. And like pretty much everyone in the first half of 2020, they were self-isolating in their home, and my wife and I were isolating in our home, and we didn’t see them for about 5 months. And we come to find out that she and the husband are having a major disagreement about how to stay safe during the pandemic. Essentially, she felt an absolute need to get outside, get some fresh air, mingle with a small group of close friends & family, and provide some sense of normalcy to her kids. On the other hand, her husband took COVID very very seriously. He felt that any contact with other people should be avoided, and that even taking walks outside, by yourself & breathing in the air, was a bad idea. So for about 5 months, they did it his way, living totally isolated from other people, and in that time his wife’s mental state was deteriorating.
By the time I finally saw her, she was sitting on the floor of her home, with her head buried in her skirt, just crying uncontrollably. I could not believe my eyes. Up until that point, I’ve always seen her as calm and in control. But the thing I’ll never forget was what she said to us – she said we abandoned her, that we never checked to see how she was doing. And she was right, we did not check on her, we just assumed she’s okay because she lives in a nice home, in a nice neighborhood, with her beautiful family.
We were totally wrong – mental illness can strike anyone, at any time, and especially during the pandemic. And from a data standpoint, I know this, but it’s something else to see it happen (up close) to someone you know. So one of the big takeaways from 2020 is access to mental health services – this has got to be a priority going forward – fundamentally improving access to mental health services throughout our communities.
So, for the past few months, I’ve been keeping a close eye on mental health apps – in particular, there’s two companies I’ve been reading up on – one is Talkspace and the other is BetterHelp (I found a really good user review of these services, there’s a link in the show notes if anyone is interested).
The bottom line with these apps is that people who sign up can access a licensed mental health therapist for about $260 per month, and that’s not bad when you compare that cost to weekly in-person visits with a therapist. And cost is not the only barrier to traditional (in-person) mental healthcare, there’s also transportation to and from a therapist’s office (thinking about folks who live in rural areas, or people who simply don’t own a car), there’s scheduling issues that can delay your in-person visit with a therapist, so a mental health app can address multiple barriers to care.
The most exciting news that I’ve seen coming out of this area involves Talkspace – the city of Reno (in Nevada) signed a deal to provide Talkspace therapy for its residents, so essentially, just living in Reno can qualify you for low-cost psychotherapy, which is fantastic. It’s rare for a city government to provide this type of service for its residents, and I think it’s just the beginning of a much bigger trend. I imagine (and hope) that other municipalities would take this example coming out of Reno and run with it – making similar deals ( directly) with private companies to provide valuable services for residents.
And importantly, we don’t have to view the Reno Talkspace therapy deal as pure charity, that Reno officials did something kind or benevolent here. Yes, it’s certainly a kind, good thing to do, but there are local benefits that could arise from this deal, which go hand-in-hand with good governance. Let’s say some number of Reno residents who ordinarily cannot access mental health services now have access to psychotherapy through Talkspace, well then it’s not too far out to imagine how that could lead to less drug or alcohol dependency (poor mental health can certainly lead to substance abuse, so access to psychotherapy could have a positive impact here); we might also imagine there’d be less domestic violence (resulting from access to psychotherapy), less crime (which means fewer run-ins with the police), greater work productivity (untreated depression or anxiety absolutely slows people down and makes them less productive in their jobs) – ultimately, all of these potential benefits could arise from this Talkspace deal, and if so, that will likely save taxpayer money.
So, with these points in mind, the Reno Talkspace therapy deal is much more than a good thing to do, it really is a community investment. And worst-case scenario, if none of these benefits materialize after a year or two, then maybe Reno officials will revisit the deal or just end it. Who knows, only time will tell? I’m betting it will end up being valuable for Reno residents, and since I practice putting my money where my mouth is, I did buy a 100 shares of the investment group HEC, which is slated to merge/acquire Talkspace later this year.
And the last point I want to make is that, going forward, I wonder if residents of different cities across the country would take notice of what’s going on in Reno Nevada with Talkspace, and maybe start to create demand for these types of services, setting expectations around public officials to make these kinds of deals, rather than looking at different health insurance companies that provide different services for different segments of the population (which is our current state and kind of chaotic). Well, thanks for listening to episode 8 of Healthcare Beans, and I hope 2021 turns out to be great year for you and your loved ones. You can check out the show notes on www.healthcarebeans.com for details on this episode, if you’re interested, or drop a comment or email if you’ve got questions. Best wishes & God Bless.
