Alma raised $130 million to expand mental health clinics

A growing number of venture-backed startups are trying to meet the growing need for mental-health care, which has been exacerbated by the pandemic. Physician Harry Ritter, who founded Allman in 2017, said the company wants to help solo practitioners continue their practice and join major insurance networks.

“How can we help these amazing people, mostly small business owners, be more successful in today’s health care system?” he said.

Mental health providers pay to join Alma, and the company earns transaction fees on patient visits they facilitate. Alma has signed up 8,000 mental health professionals and has agreements with insurers Cigna and CVS Health Corp. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. that therapists can access.

Historically, getting mental health care covered by health plans has been difficult. Insurers sometimes set limits on mental health care that don’t apply to other medical care, and their provider directory can be very inaccurate, making it difficult to find clinics that accept new patients. Many doctors only take paying patients.

Ritter said insurers are undergoing a “fundamental shift in attitude and appreciation for the importance of mental health care.”

Health insurance companies are turning to Alma to expand their supply of mental health professionals. “Cigna’s customers in the behavioral health space need more care than is readily available in the marketplace right now,” said Tom Richards, who heads Cigna Ventures.

Optum Ventures, part of UnitedHealth, is an Alma investor. With the new funding, the company has collected about 220 million dollars to date.

The rapid growth of online mental health startups has brought scrutiny to some of their practices. Companies including Cerebral Inc. and Done have been cut by some pharmacies and insurers over concerns about how their clinics are prescribing controlled substances. Although Alma has some doctors and nurse practitioners on the platform who can prescribe drugs, prescriptions are handled off-platform and the company does not dispense drugs, Ritter said.

Ross Dever, partner at Thomas Bravo, describes Alma as a “three-sided marketplace” that benefits patients, clinicians and insurers. The technology will effectively match patients and “hopefully capture data around outcomes that can increase the cost of care payers and reduce their overall health care costs,” he said in an email.

A veteran of insurer Oscar Health, Allman founded it with the goal of helping insurers connect patients with software and communities to support their businesses. Alma opened a second location in New York City when Covid hit in person.

Mental health care moved quickly online and has largely stayed there. While virtually no behavioral health care was offered online in the United States before Covid, about 40% of outpatient visits for mental-health and substance-use disorders were virtual in the first months of the pandemic, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. That number dropped slightly the following year.

Alma closed its physical location during the outbreak and lost about 65 percent of its revenue, Ritter said. Now 90% of sessions booked through Alma are virtual.

Ayana Ali, a licensed clinical social worker in Brooklyn, New York, has practiced medicine part-time for 16 years but has always held other jobs. When her position at the union was eliminated in January, she took up her full-time practice. Ali is only possible because of Alma.

The company allowed her to receive insurance for the first time. It also connects her to patients in her area of ​​focus: women of color dealing with high levels of stress or infertility.

“Alma gives you opportunities to live in your home like never before,” said Ali.

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