Direct Primary Care Meets Criteria for Accessible Mental Health Treatment

Most mental health treatment isn’t accessible, and here’s why.

Mental Health America’s (MHA) newest key findings report that in 2021, “over half of adults with a mental illness do not receive treatment, totaling over 27 million US adults who go untreated.” In addition, “Over 60% of youth with depression do not receive any mental health access.”

Some of the biggest reasons for this include a lack of knowledge, like what kind of help to seek for their problems, a lack of confidence in treatments, fears of stigma, and lack of funds to spend on mental health treatment. (Source: Mental State of the World Report 2020, Sapien Labs)

These reasons to not seek mental health treatment are all valid and make sense. It’s important to come up with resources that work around these obstacles so more Americans can access and benefit from mental health treatment.

Criteria for more accessible mental health.

Key ways to increase accessibility for treatments of mental health include:

1. Make it no-risk,
2. discrete,
3. and affordable

Direct Primary Care actually meets these criteria.

Never heard of Direct Primary Care (DPC)?

DPC practices don’t accept insurance. This helps foster stronger, more meaningful relationships between patients and providers. In this relationship, they can make autonomous choices about health care and spend more time together. Under the Direct Primary Care practice payment model, patients typically enjoy unlimited access to their provider, both digitally and in-person, for a flat fee paid directly to their provider.

With Strada Healthcare’s Direct Primary Care, patients are guaranteed unlimited access to their Strada Healthcare provider for a flat membership fee paid monthly. That fee covers all primary care services, too. This includes basic mental health therapy and more.

Now we’re getting somewhere.

At Strada Healthcare, we believe that Direct Primary Care is a viable solution to getting mental health treatment.

It doesn’t work the same with traditional primary care. In that model, health insurance companies rule and as a result, providers do not get time to actually cover everything that primary care should cover. That’s why people are re-directed to specialists more times than not when they have an issue.

Direct Primary Care is different, because – as you now know – health insurance plans are irrelevant in the model and so are the regulations that go with it. Provider and patients get back time – which we know is the most important resources in healthcare.

Back to the criteria.

Here’s why Strada Healthcare’s Direct Primary Care meets the criteria for more accessible mental health treatment.

1. Make it no-risk

With Strada Healthcare, patients can quit their membership any time without fees or penalties. There are no year-long contracts our patients must abide by.

And, Strada Healthcare patients can try mental health treatment alongside all their primary care services – for the same price. That’s something you need anyway, so why not try to improve your mental health with all your other care, too? It makes sense, especially since it doesn’t increase your costs!

By the way, having one, central provider for as much of your care as possible also lends itself to more care coordination (if necessary) and lowers the likelihood for miscommunications across multiple providers.

2. Make it discrete

While stigmas against mental health treatment should be dead and gone in 2022, they’re not. Even worse, those who live with a mental illness often feel like it’s something they should be able to control. They might even have their own stigmas that they project onto others, whether or not they actually exist. This can make mental health problems even worse.

Because Strada Healthcare providers have more time to truly care for their patients, they can treat all that belongs under the umbrella of primary care. An office visit to your primary care provider is just that – no awkward waiting areas or specialty trips that make your palms sweaty.

Even more, Strada Healthcare patients can skip the trip altogether and contact their provider through our HIPPA-compliant digital care platform called Spruce App (for texting or video calls). Through this App, patients can share their experiences and Strada Healthcare providers can give meaningful and personalized treatment, including medication management and refills.

3. Make it affordable

An adult membership to Strada Healthcare is a monthly fee of $99, and add-on family members are discounted. Like we’ve established, you get a lot of care and a lot of access with that fee. The traditional mental health talk therapy session is at least $99, but usually much, much more. You also get unlimited care and personalized treatment and never have to worry about costs rising when you need help.

Strada patients can also access other resources if they need more help. Strada patients have access to talk therapy from a licensed counselor for negotiated, deeply discounted cash prices. Check out our cash price mental health providers PEP Perspectives and Verve Collaborative Health.

Other Resources

To help you make the connection between primary care providers and mental health treatment, we’ve attached some key education videos from Strada Healthcare affiliate provider April Thomas, MSN, APRN.

If you watch and like what April has to say, you’re not alone – others do too! Better yet, she’s welcoming new patients through Strada Healthcare. Learn more about April here. You can enroll as a patient of April Thomas here.