Mt. Laurel, New Jersey-based InSight Telepsychiatry and Chicago-based Regroup Telehealth announced a merger of their businesses yesterday.

The resulting entity is now the largest and most comprehensive telepsychiatry service provider in the US, they said, specifically in regard to the joined company’s combined revenue, national footprint, diversity of client types, and diversity and quantity of their provider base.

“This merger gives us the unique opportunity to lead consolidation within our market and cements our position as the industry leader and premier telepsychiatry employer with opportunities to grow across different care settings and patient populations,” Geoffrey Boyce, the CEO of InSight and of the new combined organization, told MobiHealthNews in an email statement. “Combining resources and expertise will allow us to better meet the needs of our partners and support their behavioral health goals and growth objectives.”

Founded in 1999, InSight delivers on-demand and scheduled telepsychiatry to “hundreds of organizations,” according to the announcement, and also has a direct-to-consumer channel through its Inpathy brand.

Regroup, meanwhile, was founded in 2011 and has provider partnerships with more than 175 centers. Its teams collaborate and support onsite providers, and each year deliver “hundreds of thousands” of patient sessions.

According to the announcement, both groups will be maintaining their names and brandings throughout the integration.

WHAT’S THE IMPACT

Behavioral telehealth availability can improve patients’ access to care, especially when paired with in-person care, data have shown. With more and more legislation beginning to support these kinds of services, InSight and Regroup are combining their assets to better deliver broad array of these services to patients.

“The telebehavioral health market has been defined by a mismatch between the capacity of high-quality clinicians and the needs of a given patient. The patients most underserved are those typically requiring complex and costly care,” David Cohn, the founder and CEO of Regroup, who will hold the chief growth officer position and a seat on the board of the new company, told MobiHealthNews in an email statement.

“The combined entity will be both the destination for the best clinicians, but also offer services across the care continuum to patients with the highest level of need — from on-demand utilization in the emergency department to outpatient services defined by a high level of care continuity, and ultimately through our Inpathy product, a service available to patients in the home. Our intention, through the breadth of our services and ability to deliver them at scale, is to help shape the future of the sector as a whole,” he said

MARKET SNAPSHOT

Several of the larger telehealth vendors include behavioral health and telepsychiatry services in their repertoire — in fact, it was only a month ago that American Well shored up its offerings with the acquisition of Aligned Telehealth. However, the company had been offering psychiatry as part of its D2C offering since 2016, and brought on some additional support when it acquired Avizia in April of last year. 

Teladoc, meanwhile, runs a subsidiary called BetterHelp that specifically focuses on behavioral health and counseling services. Its founder and president Alon Matas spoke to MobiHealthNews in the fall about the opportunities of telehealth platforms to address widespread mental health issues among students.