More than 10 years since its 2013 founding, BetterHelp’s cash-only era is finally coming to an end.
Teladoc, the mental health platform’s owner since 2015, announced April 30 it had acquired UpLift, a smaller provider of virtual mental health services with a big advantage: It takes insurance.
As part of this $45 million acquisition ($30 million cash and $15 million in performance-contingent earnout), UpLift will use its existing infrastructure to phase in access to insurance benefits for BetterHelp customers over the next year, Mala Murthy, CFO of Teladoc Health, said during an April 30 earnings call.
The hope is more people will flock to the app now that it takes insurance.
“We believe that access to benefits coverage will lead to significantly higher conversion rates relative to BetterHelp’s cash-pay business, driven by greater affordability,” Murthy said, adding that “many cash-pay users that pause subscriptions cite costs as a primary factor.”
By the numbers. BetterHelp’s Q1 2025 revenue decreased 11% YoY to $239.9 million as the service has shed users, down to 397,000 this quarter compared to 415,000 in Q1 2024.
Teladoc’s total Q1 revenue was $629.4 million, down YoY by 3% with a net loss per share of $0.53.
Though a therapy session covered by insurance will likely bring in less than a session done through cash, the projected increase in users and visits “should more than offset” that, Murthy said.
UpLift also has a network of 1,500 mental health professionals and offers psychiatry and medication management, according to a Teladoc press release.
Zooming out. Teladoc’s struggle comes as telehealth companies across the board see business decline further and further from pandemic peaks.
Healthcare analytics group Trilliant Health found that quarterly telehealth visits fell from a record 60+ million in 2020 to fewer than 30 million in Q3 2023. But behavioral health has proved to be the most resilient form of virtual care, Allison Oakes, Trilliant Health’s executive director of research, told Healthcare Brew via email, making up more than 60% of telehealth visits in 2023. Insurance coverage could make it even more common.
“Just offering telehealth-enabled mental health care isn’t enough. It is also important that patients are able to access that care within the context of their insurance and that it is affordable,” she said.
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