Talkiatry is expanding virtual therapy services nationwide as part of a broader push to provide comprehensive behavioral health services across the acuity spectrum, from low to high.
As a national mental health practice that provides in-network psychiatry and therapy, the expansion also positions the company to offer broader behavioral health services to health systems, payers and employers.
The company initially built its scale around telepsychiatry, with more than 800 employed psychiatrists and a large national insurance footprint. Talkiatry claims to be the nation’s largest private employer of psychiatrists along with the preferred in-network psychiatry partner for more than 70 U.S. health systems.
The company now offers therapy services in all 50 states as it directly employs more than 400 therapists, 85% of whom are licensed in multiple states, according to the company.
Talkiatry spans more than 100 insurers, covers over 170 million lives and has delivered over 4 million patient visits.
The expansion of Talkiatry’s therapy offering enables a more coordinated behavioral health experience for patients and clinicians, according to Georgia Gaveras, M.D., co-founder and chief medical officer of Talkiatry. Gaveras, a practicing psychiatrist for more than 18 years, is triple board-certified in child and adolescent psychiatry, adult psychiatry, and addiction medicine.
Psychiatrists often struggle to refer patients to in-network therapists and coordinate care across dozens of outside providers. By employing therapists within the same system, psychiatrists and therapists can share notes and communicate directly, creating a more seamless experience for patients, Gaveras noted.
“If you have providers in the same ecosystem, the Talkiatry ecosystem, that can provide therapy and medication management, then all of a sudden it makes it a lot easier to coordinate care,” she noted.
Telehealth made mental healthcare more accessible, but it also created a patchwork of “quick fixes,” Gaveras noted. “Multistate licensure has become a moving target since the pandemic, and it’s created real inconsistency for patients who move, travel, or live near a state line. What patients need is centralized, high-quality care across the full spectrum of mental healthcare – psychiatrists and therapists working collaboratively, leading to the best care outcomes possible,” she said.
Nationally, only around 50% of the nearly 60 million adults with a mental illness receive treatment in a given year, according to data from the National Institute of Mental Health. In the U.S., the average wait time to receive behavioral health services is 48 days. For patients who do receive care, many see a therapist and psychiatrist through separate provider networks, with little to no communication between the two.
Talkiatry’s model is designed to close that gap, with therapy utilized as a targeted tool psychiatrists and care teams can leverage alongside medication management to support patients in improving mental health outcomes, according to executives.
Gaveras and Robert Krayn founded Talkiatry in 2020 to address the challenges patients and psychiatrists face in accessing and delivering high-quality mental healthcare. Currently, Talkiatry provides psychiatry and therapy services for a range of mental health conditions including anxiety, depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, bipolar disorder, mood disorder, insomnia and post-traumatic stress disorder, among others.
In February, Talkiatry, named to Fierce Healthcare’s Fierce 15 in 2024, picked up $210 million in series D funding to expand its offerings and build out its technology. The company has raised $400 million to date.
In April, the company inked a partnership with AMGA (American Medical Group Association) to expand access to in-network psychiatric care for medical groups and their patients.
Health systems and medical practices are seeing greater demand for mental health services as the U.S. also faces a profound shortage of behavioral health professionals. About 137 million Americans, or 40% of the U.S. population, live in federally designated Mental Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs), according to Health Resources and Services Administration data. HRSA also projects the supply of psychiatrists will shrink by roughly 20% by 2030.
“Health systems know that no matter what, no one entity can completely fill the need for a community. We’re not replacing anything; we’re complementing them. We’re supplementing what it is that they need to make sure that their patients get timely access to care. And, they want to partner with a high-quality provider because if you’re going to refer out to a different system for a doctor, you want to make sure that you trust where you’re referring,” Gaveras said.
The company has expanded into group therapy and plans to pilot an Intensive Outpatient Program. Talkiatry is also exploring specialty areas such as substance use treatment, Gaveras said.
The company’s care model is underpinned by proprietary AI-powered technology to manage care delivery, streamline clinical operations and engage members. Talkiatry focuses on using AI to improve the experience for patients and doctors, such as deploying AI scribes for note-taking, Gaveras noted.
Talkiatry points to its outcomes data as evidence of the model’s impact. Patients who see both a Talkiatry therapist and psychiatrist maintain their connection to care two times longer than those receiving psychiatric care alone, according to executives. Nearly 85% of Talkiatry therapists build a positive therapeutic relationship with their patients within the first month of care, based on the company’s clinical quality measurement.
A study of Talkiatry patients found that patients treated through its fully virtual psychiatry model experienced substantial reductions in depression and anxiety symptoms over roughly three months of treatment. Among patients who started with moderate-to-severe symptoms, treatment led to an average reduction of 46% for anxiety symptoms and 45% for depressive symptoms. Additionally, a peer-reviewed study found that Talkiatry’s early dropout rate is up to 60% lower than industry benchmarks.
“Patients often come to us after bouncing between a therapist and a psychiatrist who’ve never spoken. That disconnect is where care falls through the cracks,” David Guggenheim, national director of psychotherapy at Talkiatry, said in a statement. “Being able to expand our coordinated model into therapy nationwide means offering every patient a consistent care experience from the start of their mental health journey.”
Challenges with the mental healthcare system create both access problems and economic headwinds. Patients with untreated mental health conditions often end up in the emergency department (ED), which adds up to billions in avoidable and preventable mental health ED visits each year. A 2024 National Bureau of Economic Research study estimated that untreated or undertreated mental illness costs the U.S. about $282 billion per year through lost work and reduced economic participation alone.
The Mental Health TALK SAFE Act of 2025, legislation introduced in Congress this year, aims to expand access to high-quality psychiatric care through telemedicine while strengthening patient safety and accountability in telemedicine. In a commentary published in September in the American Journal of Managed Care, Jesse Ehrenfeld, M.D., past president of the American Medical Association, urged Congress to advance the legislation, arguing that it will expand telepsychiatry access by establishing permanent telehealth prescribing and licensing rules.