Rula Health, a virtual behavioral health company, has expanded its therapy services to all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
The announcement comes after the company also scaled its psychiatry services to 31 states. Established in 2019, Rula aims to improve access to personalized, in-network mental healthcare by prioritizing the therapeutic relationship and by taking a measurement-based approach to care.
Previously known as Path Mental Health, the company sees all diagnoses in ages over 5. It matches patients to providers based on their preferences, including the therapist's specialty, gender and race, with exact matches found in 97% of searches, according to Rula. It also strives to get new patients an appointment within three days or less. While Rula treats substance use disorder, it does not prescribe Suboxone.
“Rula is not just a health tech company, but it’s a technology-enabled provider group. And I use that very carefully and consciously because I think there’s others out there that are kind of just a platform,” Chief Medical Officer Doug Newton, MPH, M.D., told Fierce Healthcare.
Every appointment, Rula providers can deploy patient-reported outcome questionnaires that get embedded into the company’s internally built EHR. These ongoing clinical measurements help track where patients are on certain scales, such as the GAD7 or the PHQ9, and enable providers to deliver the highest quality care, Newton explained: “It’s not just about the outcomes. It’s how you get there.” The completion rate for the surveys for at least several sessions is nearly 90%, per Newton.
Rula’s current payer partnerships cover more than 120 million lives. It is in-network with major national and regional plans, including Optum, Cigna, Aetna, Anthem and nearly all Blues plans, according to Newton. Rula also currently takes Medicare Advantage but is interested in exploring other government payers. It has a few value-based arrangements. A small portion of Rula providers also offer a private pay option as needed.
Beyond coverage, Rula also aims to take its payer and academic relationships further by focusing on quality improvement and research efforts. In the future, Rula hopes to offer additional resources to help patients in between appointments. It also hopes to better tailor the patient-reported outcome surveys to specific patient cases. For instance, Newton suggested, a patient might not need to fill out the GAD7, intended for anxiety disorder, if they have depression. “We want to be smart about it,” Newton said. “The future is going to be about personalized care.”
About 50% of Rula patients have shown meaningful improvement by the fourth visit, defined by a four-point gain on the GAD7 or five points on the PHQ9, the company claimed. About 48% of patients enter remission on either the GAD7 or PH19 by the eighth visit. And nearly three-quarters of patients with severe acuity show meaningful improvements by the eighth visit.