The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a substantial increase in mental issues. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation study:
"Over half of U.S. adults (56%) report that worry or stress related to the coronavirus outbreak has caused them to experience at least one negative effect on their mental health and wellbeing, such as problems with sleeping or eating, increased alcohol use, or worsening chronic conditions."
Several online marketplaces are trying to make it easier and cheaper for people looking for a therapist to find one. These firms match therapists with patients and provide billing and telemedicine solutions for mental health practitioners.
Frame, for example, is a new startup based in Los Angeles.
They use answers to an online patient questionnaire to match potential patients with therapists.
Denver based Sondermind also matches patients with therapists.
As an added service they check to see if the patient's insurance covers all or part of therapy costs.
They recently raised $27 million in venture funding.
Both firms are attacking two big problems customers face when shopping for a mental health provider.
The first is finding a provider who is a good fit. This is the common matching problem faced by all online talent marketplaces.
Both Frame and Sondermind do this by asking patients to fill out questionnaires and based on the answers provide multiple therapist alternatives.
Key quote from the founder of Frame in Yahoo Finance's article This startup works like a dating site for therapy:
“We facilitate free intro calls,” she said. “Our users typically call two to three therapists ... You get to talk it out and make sure it's the right fit for you so that you feel comfortable. And then you can make your decision.”
The second problem is cost. Therapy is expensive. Both firms offer telehealth solutions, which cuts down on the cost. And as mentioned above, Sondermind also helps patients access and use insurance if possible (a feature Frame will no doubt also have at some point).
By making it easier to find and connect with mental health professionals - and by reducing patients costs - both firms are trying to allow more people the ability to access mental health professionals. This is part of the broader democratization of services trend we've long covered.
At this point, there are few - if any - professions that don't have specialized online talent marketplaces connecting service providers with customers. Lawyers, doctors, dentists, wealth managers, mental health providers of all kinds, engineers of all kinds, etc., etc., etc. all have industry specific online marketplaces.
There's still much work to be done before the use of most of these marketplaces is mainstream. Matching, for example, continues to be an issue.
But it's clear the use of online talent marketplaces is rapidly moving to the mainstream.
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