Mental Health Care Insides
Unlike Teladoc, which primarily caters directly to patients, InSight largely serves hospitals, community mental health centers, correctional facilities and substance-abuse treatment centers, providing on-demand psychiatric consults through videoconferencing. The company also operates a direct-to-consumer division that provides psychiatric and related services to individuals in their homes or private settings.
The move into on-demand behavioral health is a natural one for private-equity firms, which have embraced technology-enabled health-care offerings and poured money into many different facets of behavioral health.
“I think the space makes a lot of sense for a number of reasons,” said Michael Siano, a director at the investment bank Houlihan Lokey who focuses on the health-care information-technology space. “At a high level it’s one of the most under diagnosed and capacity constrained areas of health-care in my opinion. That’s why it’s really efficient and important to have on-demand mental health services.” Consumer-based, technology-enabled mental health care is drawing venture-capital interest, too. Last year, Talkspace—which operates a messaging platform that connects patients to therapists and counts Michael Phelps as its spokesman—received a $31 million Series C funding round from several venture investors. With both the behavioral health and technology sectors intriguing to investors, it is possible more private-equity firms will pursue deals in the on-demand behavioral health space over the course of the coming year.
