Thriveworks, a hybrid mental health provider, has launched a new booking platform for providers.
ThriveConnect is meant to support referring providers, allowing them to match and schedule their patients with a Thriveworks mental health professional in real time. The goal is to streamline scheduling, avoid care delays and catch patients in the moment they are ready for a referral. ThriveConnect facilitates both in-person and virtual appointment scheduling.
“That greatly improves the likelihood that somebody will successfully enter behavioral health treatment,” Michael Midgette, chief growth officer at Thriveworks, told Fierce Healthcare.
Thriveworks offers in-person and online care through its network of more than 2,200 clinicians across the U.S., as well as talk therapy in all 50 states, and psychiatry in most states and growing. It works with providers and payers to serve as a community-based referral partner or to embed clinicians as an extension of a care team. It also coordinates care with EHR interoperability, allowing providers to share records and notes.
“It’s all really with the same aim of creating a seamless experience for the individual who can benefit from mental healthcare,” Midgette said.
The problem with the traditional referral process is it takes time and involves several parties, Midgette explained. A doc might write a referral, then their office sends it, then the behavioral health organization must reach out to the patient. “That process in the behavioral health industry, that can take days to get somebody connected,” Midgette said.
ThriveConnect is free to use and available to any provider, from health systems to small independent practices. It offers a real-time view of Thriveworks clinicians’ schedules, with appointments available as soon as the same day or next day. It also surfaces clinicians that accept a particular patient’s insurance plan. Thriveworks works with major commercial payers and Medicare, according to Midgette.
Thriveworks’ patient-provider matching is almost entirely human-driven, with the only tech element being a filtering process to simplify the provider search. The referring provider can participate in matching the patient to a Thriveworks provider according to patient preferences, such as gender or clinical specialty.
“That clinician match is the foundation of the clinical care going forward, so it is absolutely critical that that match be effective,” Midgette said.