Mental health app partners with CDPHP

Aptihealth part of insurer’s push to get patients in care sooner

When a patient’s doctor refers them to a mental health professional, it’s often the patient who must contact three or four therapists to find one who’s available. Even if the patient is able to get an appointment, their therapist will probably not regularly speak with their primary care doctor.

Aptihealth, a behavioral health service app created by Dan Pickett, is aiming to change that. The Aptihealth program connects doctors with patients and provides selfassessments, screenings, medication management plans, and encourages frequent communications between the patient and their multiple health care providers.

“The hardest step is the first step in getting into care,” Pickett said. “We are trying to really make the first step, to break down the access wall, to break down the historical stigma of seeking care for that patient, so that in a warm, encouraging, and inviting way they can enter Aptihealth care.”

The startup’s most recent partnership is with CDPHP, a health insurer also working to connect more patients to mental health providers. That’s especially important this year when the pandemic has caused a 40 percent spike in claims for mental health and substance abuse services for CDPHP members, according to Ali Skinner, the vice president for communications for CDPHP.

Partnering with Aptihealth will bring CDPHP members speedier mental health care, a goal that CDPHP has been working toward even before the pandemic because the Capital Region is a designated mental health care provider shortage area, according to the state Health Department. CDPHP has expanded to 31 mental health care providers to date, and hopes to add 70 more by the end of the year, Skinner said.

“Currently we know that if someone is reaching out for mental health services there will be several weeks until they can get an appointment,” Skinner said. With Aptihealth a patient will be able to get care within days, Pickett said.

Simply speaking with a therapist via telehealth is significantly less impactful than connecting with a virtual care company that has highly engineered programs and is integrated with the patient’s other caregivers, Pickett said.

“The program really makes a difference. It is not just connecting with care, it is connecting with a quality care program so everyone knows what is happening at all times and there is a whole care team focused on that member,” Pickett said.