Exclusive: Lyra Health launches complex care program for severe mental health conditions

Lyra Health, a mental health benefits platform, is launching a program to treat members with complex conditions such severe depression and substance use disorders. The program, called Lyra Complex Care, will add to the company’s already-existing suite of mental wellness benefits, which include employee assistance program (EAP) services, therapy, and coaching.

The company, which is headquartered in Burlingame, California, was launched in 2015; David Ebersman, former chief financial officer at Meta, serves as CEO and co-founder. As of 2022, it had raised $915 million at a $5.58 billion valuation. Over the past five years or so, Lyra has been doing more “to support people with higher-acuity needs,” Smita Das, the company’s senior medical director of psychiatry, told HR Brew. This might look like providing medication management for members dealing with severe depression or bipolar disorder, or offering dialectical behavior therapy to people with suicidality.

Lyra is typically thought of as an EAP model, and while it does offer EAP services, such treatment goes beyond the offerings of a traditional EAP, Das said.

How Lyra Complex Care works. Lyra has partnered with facilities including Mount Sinai, Hazelden Betty Ford, and Charlie Health to provide complex care. Members will have access to over 250 locations treating over 30 different mental health needs, Das said, as well as virtual care options. A multidisciplinary team of complex care experts, staffed by Lyra practitioners with specialties in social work and psychiatry, as well as masters-level clinicians, will also provide care and work closely with these facilities.

Providing end-to-end support will be a strong focus of the complex care program. “This isn’t just about checking a box and saying, yeah, we connected them to somebody,” Das said. Lyra will be involved through the entire process, from assessing patients and getting them into a facility, then planning to have them discharged from a facility, as well as following up on outpatient appointments once they’ve left.

The idea, she continued, is for members to “know that they always have a trusted partner in Lyra to come back to should things become difficult again."

Assessing complex needs. Moving forward, employers who partner with Lyra will have access to the complex care offerings, which launched Feb. 20. The company, which works with employers such as Morgan Stanley, Salesforce, and Lululemon, has a “pay-for-results pricing model” in which costs are determined by the care businesses’ employees receive.

An estimated 1 in 20 US adults had a severe mental illness in 2021, though Das recognizes it may be tough for HR to broach this subject with employees. In early conversations with employers about this new offering, she said Lyra has encouraged HR leaders to consider whether they’ve picked up on complex needs among their employee population over the past year.

“I think every benefits leader has that in mind, the person who kind of keeps them up at night…they can’t get access to a facility, or they have a loved one that needs something and they’re not able to come to work,” Das said. “This is a scenario that happens.” If HR has dealt with even a few of these cases, she suggested, it might be worth reevaluating their mental health benefits to ensure they’re extending to those who are most in need.