Latest / Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health / Robert Krayn, Co-founder and CEO of Talkiatry

Transcript

Robert Krayn, Co-founder and CEO of Talkiatry · Becker's Healthcare Behavioral Health

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  - This is the Becker's Healthcare Podcast, created
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  Thanks for listening. Now here's the episode.
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  - This is Laura Dedo with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.
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  I'm thrilled today to be joined by Robert Crane, co-founder
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  and CEO of ry, the national mental health practice
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  that provides in-network psychiatry and therapy.
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  Robert, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.
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  - Laura. Thank you so much for
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  having me. I really appreciate it.
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  - Now, I'm looking forward to our conversation
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  because mental health
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  and therapy is really on the forefront of a lot
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  of the conversations happening, um,
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  on the national scale today,
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  and so important for healthcare as well as the wellbeing,
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  um, of everyone, uh, within the, the country.
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  But before we dive into that discussion,
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  can you tell me a little bit more
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  about yourself and your background?
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  - Sure. Yeah. I mean, listen, my,
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  my background is mostly in finance.
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  Uh, I never set out to be an entrepreneur
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  or specifically in the mental health space.
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  Um, and, you know, the start of
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  how I got involved really stems from a,
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  a traumatic experience I had back in 2016.
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  I had a home invasion in my apartment, uh, in New York City,
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  and my wife, now girlfriend at the time, uh,
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  was scared to leave the apartment after that.
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  Um, and so, you know, obviously it was, it was tough.
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  And, uh, a good friend of mine, his wife is a psychiatrist,
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  and she recommended I go and speak to someone.
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  Um, and very quickly found,
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  found out it was almost impossible to find a psychiatrist,
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  um, who accepts insurance.
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  Um, and even more difficult to find the right one.
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  You email 20 people and whoever
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  responds is the person you go and see.
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  And it's very high likelihood that
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  that's not the right doctor for you,
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  and you're not the right patient for that doctor.
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  And so really try to understand, you know,
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  why is this an issue?
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  And, and, you know, you, you pull the string and, and more
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  and more unravels you hear that, you know,
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  insurers don't wanna pay for behavioral healthcare,
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  which is not, not accurate at all.
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  Um, and just saw really kind of, uh, interesting, um,
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  opportunity in the space to solve a really big problem
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  that I went through myself, uh, and had to pay out of pocket
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  because the psychiatrist didn't accept insurance.
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  Um, and, uh, you know, in 2019, uh, I, I left, uh,
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  my previous role, um, I met my co-founder, Dr.
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  Georgia Guvera, who's a triple board certified psychiatrist.
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  Um, and together we, we founded psychiatry
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  and saw our first patient in April of 2020,
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  and we are fastly approaching our 1000000th visit.
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  So it's been a, it's been a, a very exciting journey
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  and a very rewarding one as well.
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  - That's amazing to hear, you know,
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  and definitely it seems like you've got, um, a,
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  a great story in how this company was founded
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  and really such an important mission.
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  Now, what opportunities do you see as well as headwinds
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  that you have your eye on, um, within the mental health
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  and psychiatry space?
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  - Yeah, I mean, listen, I think, I think there's a lot
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  of opportunities, um, from a care coordination standpoint.
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  Um, you know, psychiatry, um, really views ourselves.
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  Um, I know like Switzerland, to be, to be totally honest
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  with you, I think there's a lot
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  of people in the behavioral health space,
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  whether they're doing, you know, therapy
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  or different types of specialized therapy, uh,
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  or mental wellness or in the EAP market, if you will, right?
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  There's, there's a lot of people, you know, who are,
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  you know, either working with employers
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  or insurers or health systems.
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  And I think that, um, you know, what's,
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  what's a really great opportunity in the space is
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  to collaborate on care coordination for these patients.
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  So regardless of how they, you know,
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  seek behavioral healthcare
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  or, you know, um, come in contact with a provider, you know,
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  can we get them to the right place?
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  You know, and RY is not the right place for everyone.
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  And we've, we've collaborated on care coordination with,
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  you know, other digital beha, behavioral health companies,
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  like no cd for example.
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  We're, we're announcing a, a, a higher acuity, um,
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  care coordination partnership, um, in the, in the next week
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  or so here as well, but also really major health
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  systems that are nationwide.
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  Um, and, uh, you know,
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  RY provides care on an in-network basis.
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  We provided, you know, in, in 43 states today, we
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  provided care in 48 states.
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  And so I see a really big opportunity
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  to coordinate on patient's care, um,
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  and help them move, um, up
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  or down the acuity spectrum, whether that's, you know, um,
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  exiting an intensive outpatient program
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  and stepping down to a place like ry, whether that's,
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  you know, they're in therapy currently
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  and they, they need medication management,
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  and how are we making sure that, um, we make, we, we,
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  we ensure that that patient gets access
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  to care in a timely manner.
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  So I think that that's a big area
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  that we're really looking forward to in kind of partnering
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  with other nationwide, whether it's primary care groups,
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  health systems, uh, EAP programs, mental wellness apps, um,
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  but also, uh, therapy companies.
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  Um, and I think that that really works for everyone, uh,
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  for the benefit of patients,
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  but also being able to provide, uh, information back, um,
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  on quality measures
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  and track those quality measures throughout, um,
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  the acuity level back to payers at the end of the day.
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  So super excited to continue to expand on that.
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  - That's great to hear it, you know, and,
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  and certainly, um, encouraging that there are so many ways,
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  you know, that you've been able to really coordinate care,
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  been able to make things a little bit more targeted
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  and personalized, which I know patients, um,
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  really appreciate and lots of opportunities ahead.
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  Um, which, which is great to hear as well.
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  How are you thinking about growth
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  and adding value to, um, psychiatry overall?
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  What does that look like for you?
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  - Yeah, I mean, psychiatry's a really large employer
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  of psychiatrists across the country.
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  Um, that's our core expertise.
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  Um, we're, we're focused on, you know,
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  hiring clinicians on a W2 basis.
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  And so, uh, whether that's, um, psychiatrist, we also have,
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  uh, a therapy practice here at, at psychiatry, and,
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  and we use that for patients
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  who are already psychiatric patients of psychiatry and, and,
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  and need a, um, a more closely coordinated, uh,
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  level of care, if you will.
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  Um, but we collaborate again, like I mentioned, most
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  of our patients get therapy elsewhere,
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  and we wanna be able to collaborate with that.
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  So focused on continuing to grow our physician base,
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  um, across the country.
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  Uh, we do have a focus. We represent already every
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  subspecialty in psychiatry,
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  but really excited to continue to grow them.
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  We announced earlier this year, our child
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  and adolescent, uh, program specifically,
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  and my co-founder, of course, is a, a board certified child
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  and adolescent psychiatrist as well
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  as an addiction specialist.
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  Um, and we have a separate intake, uh, for patients, uh,
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  who are, who are minors, for example,
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  longer visit durations, proxy portals, you know, the ability
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  to have multiple people on a televisit.
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  So, you know, expanding into other, um,
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  subspecialties in psychiatry, uh,
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  or expanding upon them as we already have them, is something
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  that we're, we're really
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  excited, you know, to continue to do.
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  - Yeah, absolutely.
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  I, it feels like every, um, where I turn, I, I,
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  I see the need for, especially as you said, more, um,
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  mental health services for adolescents
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  and children in the pediatric population, um,
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  which could really, you know, uh, be helpful for, for them
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  as they're navigating just, uh, a lot of
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  of things going on right now in the world.
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  So, um, I, I can imagine there'll be a lot of need in,
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  in a lot of, uh, excitement
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  around being able to dig deeper there.
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  - Yeah, exactly. We're, we're super excited about it.
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  - Fantastic. Well, you know,
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  I know this past year especially has been challenging
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  for many organizations in healthcare and
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  otherwise, um, you know, whether it's financially or,
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  or trying to make sure you have your resources matching in,
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  in, um, spending, you know, the right type
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  of resources in the right areas, um,
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  but still is important to grow and innovate.
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  From your perspective, what is one risk
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  or investment that's still worth making this year
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  or in 2024 as well?
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  - Yeah, definitely. I mean, psychiatry, um,
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  certainly has a focus, um,
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  and continues to invest in, in quality
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  and measuring outcomes.
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  Um, you know, we, we have a,
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  a clinical quality function at psychiatry,
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  you know, led by a psychiatrist.
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  Um, it's a big, big focus of ours.
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  Um, we're gonna be coming out
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  with a study here very shortly, uh, that's published, um,
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  on, uh, uh, our patient population that we did.
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  We, we looked at over 1800 patients at pry that came in
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  with varying levels of, um, severity.
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  And so we're really excited, um, to continue
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  to invest in proving outcomes as well as connecting it
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  to total cost of care, right.
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  Pry, uh, is really looking to shift towards more
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  of a value-based, um, component, if you will.
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  And so we want to identify the total cost of care
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  of our patients on the physical side
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  and the behavioral health side,
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  and be able to demonstrate, um, that the outcomes, uh, are,
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  are not only best in class,
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  but also resulting in significant cost savings
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  for our payer partners, which of course trickles down
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  to cost savings for patients at the end of the day.
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  So we continue to have a big focus on investing in those
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  programs, um,
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  and going at risk, uh, for, um, some of the, uh, payments
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  that we receive and establishing those programs, uh, with,
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  with our large payer partners.
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  - I love it. That's great to hear.
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  Well, before we wrap up our conversation,
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  where do you see some of the best, um, opportunities
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  for growth in the future yourself?
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  - Yeah, I mean, again, I would go back to, you know,
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  we see a lot of growth in partnership opportunities in terms
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  of collaborating on patient care,
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  and they don't just have
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  to come from the behavioral health space.
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  We see a lot of opportunity in really large health systems
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  partnering with psychiatry
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  for outpatient psychiatry referrals.
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  We see a, a, a great opportunity
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  to give them the information back, of course,
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  with patient consent in terms of how that patient's doing,
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  what did we diagnose them with, what is the care plan
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  to allow primary care providers
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  to effectively follow up better on that patient care, um,
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  and make sure that we're coordinating really effectively.
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  So on the partnership side, you know, we're,
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  we're incredibly excited.
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  You know, we think, um, you know, the world is moving
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  to not just access, but access and quality.
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  Um, and a lot of these partners, if you will, you know,
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  and what quality looks like is not only delivering best,
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  you know, great outcomes themselves for what they do,
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  but having much better care coordination
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  and a lot of com, uh, a large portion of patients, you know,
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  they, they, they need medication management at some point.
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  Uh, not all of them, of course,
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  but if you do need that, you know, it's super difficult
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  to find, um, psychiatrists,
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  if you will, but accept insurance.
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  Um, and that's where psychiatry really stands out as kind
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  of a nationwide partner to help collaborate
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  on those, on those patients.
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  Um, you know, not really in a,
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  in a competitive nature at all,
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  but more on a, on a collaborative, um, component.
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  And so, you know, we're, we're really excited for that
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  and we see a big opportunity, uh, to kind of grow those, um,
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  those partnerships, uh, in the coming year.
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  - That's amazing to hear. I love it.
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  Robert, thank you so much
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  for joining us on the podcast today.
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  This has been such a fun and interesting conversation,
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  and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
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  - Yeah, Laura, thank you so much for having me.
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  Uh, exciting, exciting time
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  and, uh, you know, really enjoyed the conversation
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  and looking forward to, uh,
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  potentially coming back in the future.
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