Headway

Spring Health

Headway

Headway makes money by taking a percentage of the insurance reimbursement for each session facilitated through the platform. When a patient sees a Headway-credentialed therapist and pays their copay, Headway processes the insurance claim and takes a service fee from the reimbursement before paying the therapist.

The model aligns incentives well. Headway only makes money when therapy sessions actually happen, which means they're incentivized to help therapists see more patients and reduce no-shows.

Therapists make more than they would on their own (because Headway's negotiated rates are often better than individual therapists can get), and patients pay only their insurance copay ($0-$50 typically) instead of full out-of-pocket rates.

Scale creates a data and negotiation advantage. With 40,000+ therapists on the platform, Headway can negotiate better reimbursement rates with insurers.

More therapists attract more patients. More patients justify better rates.

The flywheel spins.

Spring Health

B2B employer benefit — similar model to Lyra Health but with a sharper focus on precision matching. Companies pay Spring Health a per-employee-per-month fee.

Employees take an initial assessment and Spring Health's algorithm recommends a care pathway: therapy, medication management, coaching, digital self-care, or a combination. The key differentiator is the precision — the algorithm claims to reduce treatment time by 50% by getting the right match first instead of cycling through options.

Spring Health also provides a therapist network, psychiatric services, and crisis support. Revenue scales with employer contracts and employee utilization.

Headway

Andrew Adams and Jake Sussman founded Headway in 2019 after watching people in their lives struggle to access affordable mental healthcare. The problem was specific and structural: most therapists operate as solo practitioners who don't accept insurance.

Not because they don't want to — because the process of getting credentialed with insurance companies, submitting claims, and chasing reimbursements is so bureaucratically painful that most therapists give up and go cash-only.

The result is a two-tier mental healthcare system. People with money pay $150-$300 per session out of pocket.

People without money either can't afford therapy or wait months for the few in-network providers available. Meanwhile, therapists who only accept cash are leaving money on the table — insurance pays reliably once the system works, and the patient pool is vastly larger.

Headway's solution was to build the infrastructure layer that makes insurance billing painless for therapists. They handle credentialing (getting the therapist accepted into insurance networks), claims submission, payment processing, and compliance — all the administrative work that therapists hate.

The therapist shows up, does therapy, and Headway handles everything else.

Spring Health

April Koh was studying computational neuroscience at Yale when she encountered research on precision medicine for depression — the idea that you could use data to predict which patients would respond to therapy versus medication versus a combination. The existing system was essentially trial and error: try an antidepressant for six weeks, and if it doesn't work, try another one.

Meanwhile, patients suffer. Koh co-founded Spring Health in 2016 with Adam Chekroud, a Yale neuroscience PhD, to build a platform that uses machine learning to match employees to the right mental health treatment on the first try.

They started by publishing peer-reviewed research showing their algorithms could predict treatment response better than chance, then turned that research into a product that employers would pay for.

Headway

Headway grew by solving the supply-side problem first. If you can get enough therapists on the platform and credentialed with insurance, patients will come because affordable therapy is in massive demand.

They recruited therapists with a compelling pitch: "keep doing therapy, we'll handle the business side."

Insurance partnerships were the growth unlock. Headway partnered with major insurance companies (Aetna, Cigna, United Healthcare, Anthem) to become an authorized credentialing partner.

This meant Headway could get therapists in-network faster and with less friction than the traditional process.

The mental health destigmatization wave amplified demand. Post-COVID, demand for therapy skyrocketed.

The conversation around mental health became mainstream. Headway was positioned perfectly to absorb that demand by connecting patients with affordable, insurance-covered therapists.

Spring Health

Enterprise sales to large employers, competing directly with Lyra Health, Headspace Health, and traditional EAP providers. Spring Health leads with outcomes data — publishing research showing faster recovery times and higher clinical improvement rates than industry benchmarks.

Celebrity advisor Apolo Ohno and high-profile board members gave early credibility. Series C at $2.5 billion valuation generated press coverage that opened doors.

International expansion to serve global workforces. Strategic investment from Kinnevik gave European distribution relationships.

Partnership with health plans to offer Spring Health as the behavioral health component within existing benefits.

Headway

Therapist retention is a challenge. Solo practitioners are independent by nature, and some leave the platform once they've built a full patient roster through Headway.

The platform needs to continuously demonstrate value beyond initial credentialing to keep therapists from going direct.

Insurance reimbursement rates are notoriously low. Therapists who accept insurance often earn 30-50% less per session than cash-pay rates.

While Headway negotiates better rates than individual therapists typically get, the fundamental economics of insurance-based mental healthcare remain challenging.

Regulatory complexity varies by state. Each state has different licensing requirements, insurance regulations, and telehealth rules.

Expanding to all 50 states means navigating 50 different regulatory frameworks, each with their own credentialing requirements and compliance standards.

Spring Health

Direct competition with Lyra Health, which is larger and better-funded. The employer mental health benefit space is crowded and increasingly commoditized — every startup claims better outcomes and faster ROI.

Therapist supply is the binding constraint across the entire industry. Proving that ML-driven matching actually produces better outcomes than simply having a good therapist network is a difficult clinical claim to substantiate at scale.

Employee engagement is everything — if employees don't take the initial assessment, the precision matching engine can't work. And the macro headwind: employer benefits budgets are under pressure, and mental health benefits are easier to cut than medical benefits when money gets tight.

Headway

Headway Provider Platform — the core system where therapists manage their practice: scheduling, credentialing, claims submission, payment tracking, and patient communications. Headway Patient Matching — a directory and matching service that connects patients with in-network therapists based on insurance, location, specialty, and availability.

Insurance Credentialing Service — Headway handles the months-long process of getting therapists accepted into insurance networks, reducing what typically takes 6-12 months to weeks. Claims and Billing Engine — automated insurance claims submission and tracking that eliminates the paperwork therapists dread.

Practice Management Tools — scheduling, intake forms, session notes, and telehealth capabilities integrated into one platform.

Spring Health

Precision mental health platform — ML-driven assessment that predicts optimal treatment pathway for each individual. Therapist matching engine connecting employees to the right provider by specialty, approach, and predicted fit.

Spring Health Moments — bite-sized digital exercises based on CBT for mild symptoms. Medication management through in-house psychiatric providers.

Manager and HR tools for supporting teams without violating privacy. Work-life coaching for non-clinical needs like stress and work-life balance.

Family support extending benefits to dependents. Crisis support including 24/7 access for emergencies.

Headway

Andreessen Horowitz led the Series C at a $2.3 billion valuation. Accel and Thrive Capital invested in earlier rounds.

GV (Google Ventures) and Spark Capital also participated. The company has raised approximately $226 million total.

Spring Health

Investors include Tiger Global Management, Kinnevik, Northzone, William K. Warren Foundation, and Able Partners.

Series C in 2022 valued the company at $2.5 billion.