Speaker 1: No matter what twenty twenty five holes. A Talkspace therapist
Speaker 1: can help you get ready for it. Through convenient virtual
Speaker 1: sessions and messaging therapy. Your therapist will help you build
Speaker 1: resilience and discover opportunities for growth in the year ahead.
Speaker 1: Talkspace is in network with major insurers. Most covered members
Speaker 1: have a copey of fifteen dollars or less, or you
Speaker 1: can get eighty five dollars off of your first month
Speaker 1: with promo code Katie when you go to talkspace dot
Speaker 1: com slash Katiekuric. Hi everyone, I'm Katy Kuric and this
Speaker 1: is next question. The statistics are pretty staggering when it
Speaker 1: comes to the mental health of the United States. Forty
Speaker 1: percent of Americans sixty five and older self identifies lonely,
Speaker 1: and according to the NIH, approximately seventy percent do not
Speaker 1: seek mental health treatment. In fact, many older Americans think
Speaker 1: declining mental health is just a normal part of aging,
Speaker 1: and of course, for young people, the numbers are even
Speaker 1: more distressing. Forty percent of high schoolers report feeling persistently
Speaker 1: sad or hopeless. One in five high school students seriously
Speaker 1: considered attempting suicide in twenty twenty three, and suicide deaths
Speaker 1: among ten to twenty four year olds increased by sixty
Speaker 1: two percent from two thousand and seven to twenty twenty one. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we're in the midst of a serious mental health crisis.
Speaker 1: My guest today, doctor John Cohen, is the CEO of Talkspace,
Speaker 1: the leading online platform making therapy more accessible than ever.
Speaker 1: He's had quite a professional journey, as you'll hear in
Speaker 1: our conversation, from winning the science fair in fifth grade,
Speaker 1: to vascular surgeon, to COVID leader to now health innovator.
Speaker 1: And here's a big highlight. Talkspace is expanding into medicare,
Speaker 1: bringing much needed support to seniors. Talkspace is feeling a
Speaker 1: hugely important need. I've long been interested in mental health
Speaker 1: and the obstacles many people face when it comes to
Speaker 1: getting the care they need. But that's a problem John
Speaker 1: Cohen really wants to solve. Doctor Cohen, may I call
Speaker 1: you John, absolutely, thank you, Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being here. Wow, You've had such an interesting career, and
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated by people's origin stories. So I want
Speaker 1: to start from not the very beginning, but when you
Speaker 1: realized you wanted to be a doctor.
Speaker 2: Sure so thank you and thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 2: So I grew up in Queens and in fifth grade
Speaker 2: I won the science.
Speaker 1: Fair yay, and I was do you remember what your
Speaker 1: project was?
Speaker 3: I actually do.
Speaker 2: It was actually a dissection of a calf's heart, which
Speaker 2: I presented in this in this certain fashion.
Speaker 1: Well that was very predictive, a.
Speaker 3: Little bit of prediction. And I just loved science.
Speaker 2: I love to read when I was growing up, and
Speaker 2: I think it was from that point forward that I
Speaker 2: said I really want to be a doctor. So I
Speaker 2: don't that's the one event that I could point to
Speaker 2: in my life early on.
Speaker 1: You ended up becoming a vascular surgeon. That cow's heart
Speaker 1: was really fascinating to you. Absolutely tell me about what
Speaker 1: led you to that specialty.
Speaker 2: So when you're in training and surgery training, it's a
Speaker 2: five year surgical training program, which is I did a
Speaker 2: New York Presbyterian Wild Cornell where I didn't meet my wife.
Speaker 2: We met as residence and got married our second year.
Speaker 1: Who's also a surgeon by the way.
Speaker 3: Son in law. Thank you for that. Yes, And I.
Speaker 2: Definitely wanted to be a surgeon for a long long time.
Speaker 2: I don't know when that happened. I was quite honestly,
Speaker 2: probably influenced by Mash the TV program. Really Alan, There's
Speaker 2: no question that Hawkeye Peis was a hero of mine.
Speaker 1: I think it's so funny.
Speaker 2: I think it had some influence on me. And so
Speaker 2: I trained for five years of surgery, and then trained
Speaker 2: in VASCA surgery for a post residency up at the
Speaker 2: Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard, then came back to
Speaker 2: New York and then have been here ever since.
Speaker 1: I have a dumb question, and I should know this
Speaker 1: because I am really interested in medicine and science. I
Speaker 1: think partly because of my husband's diagnosis of colon cancer,
Speaker 1: I had to learn very quickly about cancer. And my
Speaker 1: brother in law was the head of cardiology at the
Speaker 1: University of Virginia, my alma mater, and so I know
Speaker 1: a little bit about heart stuff, but I don't actually
Speaker 1: understand what a vascular surgeon does. Is that embarrassing?
Speaker 2: No, No, listen, not at all embarrassing. I'm not surprised
Speaker 2: because most people don't.
Speaker 3: Most people.
Speaker 2: So the difference is between cardio surgery and vascal surgery
Speaker 2: is vascal surgeons operate and all blood vessels except for
Speaker 2: the heart so it's all the biginst of all blood cells,
Speaker 2: the carotid arteries that supplied blood to the brain, a
Speaker 2: orders that supplied blood to the rest of the body,
Speaker 2: and so all of those blood vessels have certain abnormalities
Speaker 2: during people's lifespan, and what we did is what we
Speaker 2: do is vask In surgeons, is fix those abnormalities, whether
Speaker 2: it could be fixing the blood vessel to the brain,
Speaker 2: the crotid artery, whether it's fixing blood vessels to your
Speaker 2: legs so people don't lose their limbs, or whether it's
Speaker 2: fixing the aorta for something called ordic aneurisms that can burst.
Speaker 2: So that's the specialty of Vaskal surgery. So that's what
Speaker 2: I did for almost twenty years.
Speaker 1: So you were less interested in the cow's heart and
Speaker 1: more interested in what made that heart tick.
Speaker 2: Oh, more about how you got the blood there and
Speaker 2: how the blood left there, that's right, and the diseases
Speaker 2: associated that. So that's in and of itself as its
Speaker 2: own specialty.
Speaker 1: What was your most frequent surgery that you'd perform?
Speaker 2: Aerotic aneurisms, which are bubbles which form on very large
Speaker 2: blood vessels. So the most common surgery it was aortic
Speaker 2: aneurysm repairs and a lot of famous people including actually
Speaker 2: Albert Einstein died of a ruptured aortic aneurism. Many people
Speaker 2: much much early in the forties, fifties and sixties until
Speaker 2: the techniques were developed to be able to repair them.
Speaker 3: So that was my most common surgery.
Speaker 1: So do you get a warning that you have that
Speaker 1: problem or I mean, how do you operate on that?
Speaker 2: So the ertic aneurisms are a silent killer. You only
Speaker 2: would know it if you happen to get an ultrasound
Speaker 2: or a cat scan and someone discovers it. You can
Speaker 2: discover it on if they get very large on physical exam,
Speaker 2: but most of them were discovered with people who do
Speaker 2: not have symptoms. Now the other things I operate other entities.
Speaker 2: I operated on corotid arteries, which is people frequently have
Speaker 2: warning signs of a stroke. People who have leg problems,
Speaker 2: we knew that they had those problems because see the
Speaker 2: threatened limb loss or they had pain when they were walking.
Speaker 2: So the different types of surgery, but for me personally,
Speaker 2: it was mostly aortic and years of repair.
Speaker 1: So after your career as a vascular surgeon, you transitioned
Speaker 1: to a lot of other roles. You are a man
Speaker 1: of many hats. You were leading the large scale COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen testing efforts at Bioreference Labs during the pandemic. Yes,
Speaker 1: what was that like?
Speaker 2: So I was very fortunate. Yes, I've had a very
Speaker 2: circuitous path.
Speaker 3: Nice way of described haven't even gotten ye right.
Speaker 2: Which is a sort of a nice way of saying
Speaker 2: that I did a lot of things. So Bioreference I
Speaker 2: was there for. I was the CEO and executive chairman
Speaker 2: for about a year when COVID hit, which is just
Speaker 2: an extraordinary event as we all remember or try not
Speaker 2: to remember at this point. So we were faced by
Speaker 2: references about the largest laboratory in the country, and we
Speaker 2: were faced with the trying to figure out how to
Speaker 2: make the diagnosis of people and how to get COVID testing.
Speaker 2: So we did end up being the leader in a
Speaker 2: lot of the customized solutions. So we ended up testing
Speaker 2: for the NBA Bubble, if you remember, we did the
Speaker 2: exclusive testing for the National Football League all fall two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty six games to Super Bowl. We relaunched
Speaker 2: the cruise industry with Royal Caribbean and eventually was testing
Speaker 2: out of ten or eleven ports around the country, and
Speaker 2: then we were running most of the New York City
Speaker 2: school testing, testing thousands of children and hundreds of schools
Speaker 2: every single day. We did the overwelming majority of school
Speaker 2: testing for New York City and other school districts. So
Speaker 2: I had a very unusual experience with a great team
Speaker 2: of people, and as you know, I ended up writing
Speaker 2: about it about what it's like to be a leader
Speaker 2: during a crisis, which is a very different crisis. So
Speaker 2: there are crises that happen and then you have to react.
Speaker 2: COVID was very different. One of my actually one of
Speaker 2: my favorite quotes is COVID is where intuition goes to die.
Speaker 2: Because every time we thought we knew what was going
Speaker 2: to happen, something different happened, and you're it's a little
Speaker 2: bit like being in the field in war because you
Speaker 2: never really know what's going to happen the next day.
Speaker 2: So every day we will wake up and changes would occur.
Speaker 2: So it's a very different type of management than an
Speaker 2: event that occurs and then you actually deal with the crisis.
Speaker 2: So it was an extraordinary personal experience, an extraordinary experience
Speaker 2: for the company.
Speaker 1: I'm curious how you feel, John about all the Monday
Speaker 1: morning quarterbacking that's happened after the pandemic ended, And it
Speaker 1: seems it's become so politicized, and I think it actually
Speaker 1: fueled a lot of people politically. And you know, there's
Speaker 1: this lack of trust in science. There's so many, so
Speaker 1: many things that are a part of this. But what
Speaker 1: do you make of it?
Speaker 2: So I'll stick to diagnostics because that's the industry that
Speaker 2: I was. I will tell you that the rollout and
Speaker 2: the COVID vaccine was remarkable in terms of the number
Speaker 2: of lives that were saved, and I give there's a
Speaker 2: lot of people that deserve credits for that. I do
Speaker 2: think Pfizer and the CEO of Pfizer had an extraordinary
Speaker 2: role in being able to move the COVID vaccine as
Speaker 2: quick as they did, and the ability to the administration
Speaker 2: of the Trump administration at the time to actually roll
Speaker 2: it out. Now, having said that, on the diagnostic side,
Speaker 2: as I sit here today, if God forbid there's a
Speaker 2: bird flu outbreak or any other I will tell you
Speaker 2: unfortunately we're still very very ill prepared for another pandemic.
Speaker 2: On the diagnostics side, it continues to be an issue
Speaker 2: relative can we scale and test millions of people a day?
Speaker 2: And that discussion still really hasn't happened.
Speaker 1: But why do you think you know, I've done interviews
Speaker 1: about pandemic preparedness and this it's been ever thus. You know,
Speaker 1: before the COVID outbreak, we weren't prepared. A lot of
Speaker 1: people said, well, we've learned a lot and next time
Speaker 1: will be better prepared. But it doesn't ever seem to
Speaker 1: get traction. This idea of gearing up for the possible.
Speaker 2: It's like you said, it's probably you know, all political
Speaker 2: or politicized. At this point. I can't tell you why.
Speaker 2: I just know that having been through it and seeing
Speaker 2: you know, what we do or don't have, now, we're
Speaker 2: not really ready for another pandemic. On the diagnostic side.
Speaker 1: A lot of people I think complain about school closings, right,
Speaker 1: and I always think, well, what if a bunch of
Speaker 1: kids had died? Right? And that science is an art
Speaker 1: and that people learn, as you said, where intuition goes
Speaker 1: to die, people were learning in real time about how
Speaker 1: this virus behaved.
Speaker 2: Well, we were not only learning, but then every time,
Speaker 2: as I said that, we thought then you had delta,
Speaker 2: then you had omicron, and then we moved from testing.
Speaker 2: Remember the lines people sitting in their cars for hours
Speaker 2: and hours and hours to sit at a drive through
Speaker 2: the get tested. And then we moved from filling from testing.
Speaker 2: And at one point we were doing one hundred thousand
Speaker 2: tests a day in the lab that had not done
Speaker 2: one single test in March, and so we scaled for
Speaker 2: several months to get up to that point. But remember
Speaker 2: we moved from COVID testing, from swabbing you. Then we
Speaker 2: moved to testing what it's called point of care, where
Speaker 2: we would go someplace and they test you and you'd
Speaker 2: wait for thirty minutes. And then we went to home testing,
Speaker 2: but you had to send your result in. And then
Speaker 2: we went to testing where people tested theirselves. So the
Speaker 2: evolution of the technology alone was extraordinary once we got
Speaker 2: to where people figured out what they needed. But those
Speaker 2: changes alone only occurred over maybe six or seven or
Speaker 2: eight months.
Speaker 3: Think about that.
Speaker 2: You know, we test everybody one way, and then we
Speaker 2: wake up say oh, no, no, no, now we have to
Speaker 2: test people another way. Oh and now we need to
Speaker 2: test them another way. So we were trying to manage
Speaker 2: that on a day to day basis and people screaming
Speaker 2: for the results. Anyway, it was a quite It was
Speaker 2: an extraordinary personal experience. I could tell you that I that, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was for three years.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, was it traumatizing in some ways?
Speaker 3: No, I don't know.
Speaker 2: To me, it was a traumatizing. It was its very
Speaker 2: in some stance of vigor.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It was exciting that maybe not the right objective to
Speaker 2: be in the middle of it, but to be part
Speaker 2: of it and to help figure it out. It was Again,
Speaker 2: it was an amazing personal experience and for the team
Speaker 2: of people had around me, they were unbelievable to be
Speaker 2: able to pull this off.
Speaker 3: Quite honestly, we.
Speaker 2: Did a lot of experimentation, guessing, making decisions, good decisions,
Speaker 2: bad decisions, moving forward, and trying to figure out, you know,
Speaker 2: what was going to work and what was going to work.
Speaker 2: I mean, we were literally testing hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 2: people a week in the test that didn't exist in
Speaker 2: March of tw twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: So you go from being a vascular surgeon to overseeing
Speaker 1: sort of the diagnostic technology, the evolution of the diagnostic
Speaker 1: technology for COVID right and implementing it in very high
Speaker 1: risk situations. Right. I can't think of a higher risk
Speaker 1: situation than a cruise ship right where there was such
Speaker 1: a huge outbreak early on in the pandemic. How the
Speaker 1: hell did you become CEO space?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should explain what talk space is. Can you
Speaker 1: help us with that?
Speaker 2: So Talkspace says we're publicly traded. We've been around thirteen years,
Speaker 2: when public about three years ago. So Talkspace right now
Speaker 2: is a mental health virtual provider. So what you do
Speaker 2: for talk spaces If you need mental health therapy, you
Speaker 2: go online and we have multiple modalities so you can
Speaker 2: be treated a lot of people get treated by video,
Speaker 2: live video. It's a live video visit. We are, by
Speaker 2: the way, a fully hip a compliant healthcare organization. We
Speaker 2: have six thousand therapists all fifty states across the country.
Speaker 2: And what happens you get matched with a therapist and
Speaker 2: the therapists just like you would go to a therapist
Speaker 2: to get therapy. Mental health service does that online video
Speaker 2: We also have which I thought was quite amazing when
Speaker 2: I got there. Talk sayst died mostly original research that
Speaker 2: you could provide therapy through texting and.
Speaker 1: Messaging, right, so it's.
Speaker 2: Called asynchronous therapy, and the reason it's a really bad move.
Speaker 2: So asynchronous therapy means that if you send a message
Speaker 2: to your therapist at three o'clock in the morning, she
Speaker 2: or he's not getting back to you probably till nine
Speaker 2: or ten the next day. So it means that it's
Speaker 2: not happening to be instantaneously.
Speaker 3: That's correct.
Speaker 2: So well, that's why it's called asynchronous. So it turns
Speaker 2: out they did the Toxics in most of the original
Speaker 2: research on that to prove that you can actually deliver
Speaker 2: therapy adequately through texting messaging and then move to video
Speaker 2: from there and we talk about it. You know, I
Speaker 2: got there a little over two years ago. We made
Speaker 2: a big toxics at a big pivot to being in network.
Speaker 2: So most people's insurance now cover therapy through talk Space.
Speaker 2: That's very important. We have one hundred and sixty five
Speaker 2: million covered lives soon to be two hundred million covered lives,
Speaker 2: which means when you're looking for therapy now, good chance
Speaker 2: you don't have to pay for it, or there's a
Speaker 2: very small copay or at a pocket charge. That's changed
Speaker 2: the dynamic dramatically for talk Space because the number one.
Speaker 2: I talk about this all the time. The number one
Speaker 2: barrier to getting health care is cost. Right, So now
Speaker 2: instead of.
Speaker 1: Going for therapy, mental health care and mentally.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, and in general so general health care, the
Speaker 2: number one is costs. So now in mental health because
Speaker 2: of a bunch of other issues we could talk about
Speaker 2: in terms of accessibility and availability, but affordability, cost has
Speaker 2: been a big issue. So now if people are looking
Speaker 2: for therapy, basically the insurance is going.
Speaker 3: To cover it.
Speaker 2: That's fueled a huge growth in talk space in terms
Speaker 2: of the number of people accessing. So that's that's what
Speaker 2: talk space says briefly.
Speaker 1: Right now, why did this job appeal to you? And
Speaker 1: no offense, but why are you qualified?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So it's you've asked the same question you've asked is
Speaker 2: what most of my close friends have asked me.
Speaker 3: Also, like what you know? How in the world is
Speaker 3: this happening? So I so.
Speaker 2: First off, total transp answer. Yes, I during medical school.
Speaker 2: I think I had a week of psychiatry. So I'm
Speaker 2: not going to tell you that I have any psychiatric
Speaker 2: background or out or any qualifications from a you know,
Speaker 2: physician point of view to be a psychiatrist and I
Speaker 2: have a chief medical officer at the company. Her job
Speaker 2: is to be that physician and that leader. So I
Speaker 2: was when I was at Bioreference, and prior to that,
Speaker 2: I was actually a senior executive at Quest Diagnostics. I
Speaker 2: have fairly deep background in digital health, so it was
Speaker 2: always interested when we built a digital health platform and
Speaker 2: how you get your medical records and how you get
Speaker 2: results online. And we built a very interesting digital health
Speaker 2: product when I was at bioreference to be able to
Speaker 2: go to your home and draw your bloods and get
Speaker 2: a digital result back. So we built that platform. There
Speaker 2: was the chairman of the board that Talkspace met me
Speaker 2: when I was at bioreference and asked me at the
Speaker 2: time if I would consider coming on the board. So
Speaker 2: I joined the board of Talkspace first and then post
Speaker 2: COVID after leaving by a reference, not sure what I
Speaker 2: was going to do next, they asked me if I
Speaker 2: would consider coming off the board and taking on the
Speaker 2: role of CEO of the company. So that's how I
Speaker 2: ended up there. So I was on the board and
Speaker 2: then came off to become CEO, and that's a little
Speaker 2: over two years ago.
Speaker 1: So it appealed to your interest and digital health and
Speaker 1: I guess making health care more accessible and affordable.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there were a couple of reasons. One is
Speaker 2: which is we should get into is what we like
Speaker 2: to say is that mental health time has come. If
Speaker 2: you had this discussion ten years ago, we couldn't have
Speaker 2: this discussion ten years ago. Now mental health has become
Speaker 2: front and center. It's become physical health and mental health,
Speaker 2: and it's become as important, which it should be as
Speaker 2: physical health. So one is mental all the time has come,
Speaker 2: So that was very interesting to me. Two is the market,
Speaker 2: the total addressable market, meaning the ability to have something
Speaker 2: that has a big influence and has a very big
Speaker 2: market is very important because you have if you have
Speaker 2: a solution but nobody wants it, that's it's not really
Speaker 2: very great, right, but you have and if you have
Speaker 2: a solution, which I believe Talkspace had in a market
Speaker 2: where fifty percent of the people coming to talk space
Speaker 2: every week are new to therapy.
Speaker 1: What percentage fifty? Wow?
Speaker 2: So you have this incalculable number of people who want it,
Speaker 2: who need it, and turns out talk Space has a
Speaker 2: solution that is scalable, affordable, accessible and available. So that
Speaker 2: was the so for me, it was a very interesting opportunity.
Speaker 2: And like I said, I'm not certainly not qualified on
Speaker 2: the psychiatry part of the mental health part. I think
Speaker 2: that eventually, as a leader, which you see in a
Speaker 2: lot of different industries, if you learn how to lead,
Speaker 2: then you can figure it out if you put good
Speaker 2: people around you. And that's that is the listen, it's
Speaker 2: whoever's president of United States, whatever.
Speaker 3: Corporation to toe you.
Speaker 2: Most people walk into a lot of people walk in
Speaker 2: those positions with not having industry experience, but they have
Speaker 2: a leadership experience. And there's a big difference between being
Speaker 2: a successful person and being a leader, very very very different.
Speaker 1: The new year is the time to make plans and
Speaker 1: set goals, but the only thing you can be certain
Speaker 1: of is change, good, bad, or in between. A Talkspace
Speaker 1: therapist can help you get ready for what's next, whether
Speaker 1: you have big ambitions for twenty twenty five or are
Speaker 1: simply trying to stay the course. Through video sessions and
Speaker 1: messaging therapy, a licensed talkspace therapist will help you build
Speaker 1: your resilience and discover opportunities for growth. Talkspace is in
Speaker 1: network major insurers and most covered members have a copay
Speaker 1: of fifteen dollars or less, or you can take eighty
Speaker 1: five dollars off your first month with the promo code Katie.
Speaker 1: When you go to talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric Match
Speaker 1: with the Licensed Therapist today at talkspace dot com slash Katiecuric.
Speaker 1: What do you think makes a good leader? I'm just
Speaker 1: curious because I feel like there's a real dearth of
Speaker 1: leaders or I think a lot of people look around
Speaker 1: and say, where are all the incredible leaders in our society?
Speaker 2: So part of that is that, without getting too political,
Speaker 2: is the reason the reason most people don't run for
Speaker 2: office as a leader is because of the quote blood sport,
Speaker 2: that the that the news and the presses nobody wants
Speaker 2: to put their family and everybody else through what most
Speaker 2: people have to go through if you're going to run
Speaker 2: for office.
Speaker 1: But it's also the oppa research. Just to defend the
Speaker 1: press for a second, Yes, a lot of it is
Speaker 1: coming from whoever is running against you, right right.
Speaker 2: There's no question the oppositie your research is the and
Speaker 2: so that to me is one of the bigges things.
Speaker 2: So to back the issues of you know, leadership, So
Speaker 2: I you know I do talk about it during the
Speaker 2: COVID crisis, and the book is there. There are a
Speaker 2: bunch of different attributes that make a person effective leader,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of people talk about it the
Speaker 2: son without any particular order.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: First off is to me, it's very important that you
Speaker 2: listen to your in a voice. I tell people I
Speaker 2: call it the little man sitting on your shoulder, and
Speaker 2: as a physician assurgeon, you need to listen to your
Speaker 2: your gut instincts and what your brain is telling you
Speaker 2: and not ignore the obvious. Now that may seem like, Okay,
Speaker 2: well that doesn't sound very important, but a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't. A lot of people don't listen to their
Speaker 2: to their in a voice. So that's the one. Second
Speaker 2: is you need to be able to communicate effectively, both
Speaker 2: internal communications and external communications. No particular third I bes
Speaker 2: mentioned you got to surround yourself with great people because
Speaker 2: you can't do everything. And unless you have great people
Speaker 2: around you who you really trust, you know incredibly important.
Speaker 3: You need to read.
Speaker 2: I know it's a sort of that you need to read,
Speaker 2: and not just about your industry, but I would tell
Speaker 2: you an enormous number of ideas that come to us
Speaker 2: or through me is because I read about something that
Speaker 2: is totally unrelated to what I'm doing and saying, wow,
Speaker 2: maybe that applies to what we're doing. So becoming knowledgeable
Speaker 2: reading I think walking the walks very important. Mean you
Speaker 2: have to be out there. You can't be an armchair
Speaker 2: surgeon or an armchair leader. You have to be out
Speaker 2: there and you know, you know, during COVID, I remember
Speaker 2: going to visit the cruise line industry. I've never been
Speaker 2: on a cruise of my life, and I was I'm
Speaker 2: just not going to I'm very i get very very seasick.
Speaker 2: But I went and I walked the ship to figure
Speaker 2: out how are we going to get people tested before
Speaker 2: they got on the ship. Just to give an example.
Speaker 2: So you need to walk the walk and really understand
Speaker 2: what the dynamics are in the field to be able
Speaker 2: to help lead effectively a bunch of people. I think
Speaker 2: staying in touch with people's extraordinary important. I will tell
Speaker 2: you our ability to test different places when we tested
Speaker 2: for or New York State, when we tested for New
Speaker 2: York City, when we did the majority of testing for
Speaker 2: a lot of fifteen in the counties in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: It was all because of different people that had met
Speaker 2: during my life that was able to pick up the
Speaker 2: phone or they picked up the phone to call me
Speaker 2: and say listen, can you help?
Speaker 3: So those are.
Speaker 2: I think taking risk is important or feeling comfortable taking risks.
Speaker 2: Covid is we made a huge amount of decisions during uncertainty.
Speaker 2: You have to just get comfortable and you got to
Speaker 2: make a mistake. So those are just some of the
Speaker 2: things that make an effective leader during a crisis.
Speaker 1: Anyway, let's talk about mental health and the stigma that
Speaker 1: used to surround it. Why is there less of a
Speaker 1: stigma surrounding mental health today than there was ten years ago?
Speaker 1: To your point, Well.
Speaker 2: First of if you look at either gen Z or millennials,
Speaker 2: they're so out there talking to people and comfortable discussing
Speaker 2: their feelings. They grew up in a very different environment
Speaker 2: than I grew up, and there are still cultural stigma issues.
Speaker 2: There are definite issues with certain sub segments of the
Speaker 2: population that just will never talk about it. However, the
Speaker 2: the the idea that the younger generations feel much more
Speaker 2: comfortable now, maybe because it's also because of the phones
Speaker 2: and cell phones, and they used to communicating and they're
Speaker 2: used to talking to people all the time, but it's very,
Speaker 2: very different. In addition, people are aware now and they're
Speaker 2: willing to discuss.
Speaker 3: It.
Speaker 2: So you know, we may talk about, well, what's happening
Speaker 2: with seniors, and now talking about seniors and loneliness and isolation.
Speaker 2: I'll give you a great example when if you remember
Speaker 2: Deamar Hamlin, he was when I had cardiac arrests during
Speaker 2: the football team. Remember we're a football game. What was
Speaker 2: fascinating is, you know, fortunately he did incredibly well and
Speaker 2: they got him off the field and you know he's back.
Speaker 2: But the day after that, I will never forget it
Speaker 2: was I think it was un CNN. One of the
Speaker 2: player reps, you know, the guys who lead part of
Speaker 2: the players unions, got up there and said, guys, man up,
Speaker 2: you need to go talk to people about this. You
Speaker 2: guys can't just keep your feelings internal. You need to
Speaker 2: go out there and see somebody talk about it. That
Speaker 2: never would happen ten years ago that someone would sit
Speaker 2: on broadcast TV and say to guys like, guys, you
Speaker 2: got to figure out how to deal.
Speaker 3: With your emotions. So that the idea that it's out
Speaker 3: there is very important. I don't know if you know so.
Speaker 2: Our brand ambassador for talk space has been Michael Phelps.
Speaker 1: Yes, I know Michael.
Speaker 3: So he's been.
Speaker 2: Amazed, he still is. He's been amazing. And his journey,
Speaker 2: his mental journey, actually helped put talkspace on the map
Speaker 2: when he agreed to talk about his mental journey and
Speaker 2: he became a big part of talkspace and still is
Speaker 2: talking about his journey.
Speaker 4: It was October of twenty fourteen that I lost all hope.
Speaker 4: I was one of the world's most successful athletes, eighteen
Speaker 4: gold medals, all American dream come true.
Speaker 3: I was lost.
Speaker 4: I hadn't left my room in five days. I questioned
Speaker 4: whether I wanted to be alive anymore. I realized that
Speaker 4: I'm the strongest person I know, but at that moment,
Speaker 4: I was the weakest. I realized I couldn't handle this
Speaker 4: by myself. That's when I decided to seek help and
Speaker 4: work with a therapist. That decision saved my life. You
Speaker 4: don't have to wait for it to get that bad.
Speaker 4: Please talk to a licensed therapist as soon as you
Speaker 4: feel you need help, brought to you by talk Space
Speaker 4: Therapy for all.
Speaker 2: So, I think it's people are now willing to talk
Speaker 2: about it, and actually it's no longer a stigma to
Speaker 2: get help.
Speaker 1: I think you're right, people are talking about it more,
Speaker 1: and I think there's just a greater understanding, as you said,
Speaker 1: about the importance of that mental health is as important
Speaker 1: as physical health.
Speaker 3: Right, I mean I.
Speaker 2: Would have to talk. I think everybody has should have
Speaker 2: a primary care phosian. Actually, I believe everybody should have
Speaker 2: a therapist. I think everybody should have somebody that they
Speaker 2: could talk to. It would be really helpful.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the accessibility, because I know there aren't
Speaker 1: enough therapists out there, or at least that's what I've read,
Speaker 1: especially in rural communities, especially in some underserved communities, and
Speaker 1: I think there is still perhaps more of a stigma
Speaker 1: and underserved communities. Can you talk about the challenges of
Speaker 1: providing mental health services to people in those situations?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 2: So the availability or accessibility there links. So availability is okay?
Speaker 2: Is there a therapist actually available to take care of you?
Speaker 2: The other part of that is are they accessible to you?
Speaker 2: Can you get to them? It's no good if you
Speaker 2: have a therapist but you're three hundred miles away and
Speaker 2: can't get to them. So the talk Space solution has
Speaker 2: solved that issue because what happens is by doing virtual
Speaker 2: you don't have to leave your house, you don't have
Speaker 2: to travel. We make it incredibly easy for you to
Speaker 2: schedule it. And by the way, if you want to
Speaker 2: get a therapist to talkspace, we're going to match you
Speaker 2: with a therapist within twenty four hours and frequently it's
Speaker 2: several hours. So you could start communicating your therapist within
Speaker 2: twenty four hours if you match your therapist through talkspace.
Speaker 2: So that solution has made it very, very easy for
Speaker 2: people to get help. So I know we may talk
Speaker 2: about teen Space, which is the program we're running in
Speaker 2: New York City, but I'll jump ahead to some of
Speaker 2: the data. So we have almost two we have almost
Speaker 2: twenty thousand kids between the age of thirteen and seventeen
Speaker 2: who are on the Talkspace platform. So we have a
Speaker 2: contract with New York City it's public to provide Talkspace
Speaker 2: to four hundred and sixty five thousand eligible teenagers between
Speaker 2: the age of thirteen and seventeen for free for New
Speaker 2: York City teenagers. So all you need is your zip
Speaker 2: code and your data birth to sign up. So if
Speaker 2: you think about it, We've had twenty thousand teens sign
Speaker 2: up within the first year. I will tell you no question,
Speaker 2: ninety nine percent of those kids never would have had
Speaker 2: therapy before.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: The reason is is we've made it one affordable, it's free.
Speaker 2: It's incredibly successful because they're ninety percent or greater of
Speaker 2: the kids are accessing it through their phone. So now
Speaker 2: it happens if you look at we've done the zip
Speaker 2: code analysis, so where we're reaching, we're reaching into communities
Speaker 2: of color, underserved, communities that never would have access before
Speaker 2: because we're meeting kids where they are, which is on
Speaker 2: their phone. So we've solved the issue. So, whether you
Speaker 2: live in a rural community, as long as you have
Speaker 2: internet access, you can get therapy through talk space.
Speaker 1: Are you finding it difficult to have enough therapists to
Speaker 1: treat the need?
Speaker 3: So we do not.
Speaker 2: We have therapist we have we're continually adding to the platform.
Speaker 2: Part of the reason is because well, the majority of
Speaker 2: our therapists are what's called ten ninety nine's a part time.
Speaker 2: A lot of them are actually stay at home moms
Speaker 2: or they have a small practice on the side. So
Speaker 2: let's put aside the video for a second, because video
Speaker 2: you have to schedule, you know, we like people to
Speaker 2: do an hour of the first intake and then subsequently
Speaker 2: maybe shorter periods of time. But at least almost fifty
Speaker 2: percent of the talk space sessions are still done through
Speaker 2: texting and messaging. The reason that's important is you have
Speaker 2: an incredible ability to scale when you're testing and messaging
Speaker 2: all during the day or in the evening or weekends.
Speaker 2: So our therapy network flexes to a significant degree. So
Speaker 2: a lot of therapists may take extra hours a night,
Speaker 2: they may take extra hours during the weekends. They may say, oh,
Speaker 2: you know what, a week from now, I'm going to
Speaker 2: take a bunch of more sessions because I have time availability.
Speaker 2: So because of the scheduling system is so effective, and
Speaker 2: because they can make themselves available, we have a lot
Speaker 2: of ability to flex because they're not they're not just
Speaker 2: saying okay, I have I could see eight hours of patients.
Speaker 2: Say I could see eight people or I could see
Speaker 2: sixteen for half hour. We have therapists who could be
Speaker 2: texting messaging thirty or forty people at a different time.
Speaker 2: Because it's so easy in terms of how you message
Speaker 2: people back and forth and have conversations.
Speaker 3: Back and forth.
Speaker 1: Now, of course that raises a red flag for me, thinking, Gee,
Speaker 1: if I were a traditional therapist or I was somebody
Speaker 1: who wanted therapy, how effective is that? And I know
Speaker 1: you all have done reams of research on it, but
Speaker 1: you know talk therapy requires talk or does it?
Speaker 3: So it does, but not the butt.
Speaker 2: The research is very clear that it's highly highly effective.
Speaker 2: So we have outcomes measures, we measure quality. May have
Speaker 2: a huge number of quality metrics is in terms of
Speaker 2: we measure relative to therapists their ability to deliver therapy inadequately,
Speaker 2: but we have we have measure in some instances every
Speaker 2: three weeks how effective the therapy is in terms of
Speaker 2: how what the outcomes look like.
Speaker 3: So we know it works.
Speaker 2: It wouldn't and to the credit of the insurance companies,
Speaker 2: they figured out it works also, which is why they've
Speaker 2: put us in network because it's become a very it's
Speaker 2: an important solution for them to be able to provide
Speaker 2: mental health support as opposed to the standard way that
Speaker 2: people usually provided.
Speaker 1: There was a time where people were too ashamed to
Speaker 1: put to contact their insurance companies and say, I mean,
Speaker 1: I've been working for a long time and I think
Speaker 1: ten years ago people would be worried that their employers
Speaker 1: would look as scance at them, or they wouldn't have
Speaker 1: enough privacy, and they would be afraid to actually reach
Speaker 1: out to their insurance company to cover therapy.
Speaker 2: So if you ask any HR executive today or tomorrow,
Speaker 2: what's their number one issue, it's mental health support for
Speaker 2: their employees. So they have recognized to a very significant
Speaker 2: degree how important it is for their employees. And we
Speaker 2: again have data, so I will tell you it's another
Speaker 2: extraordinary statistic. The average number of days lost to mental
Speaker 2: health is twenty eight. Twenty eight days of a year lost
Speaker 2: to mental health support for employee. So employers know if
Speaker 2: they support, if they have mental health support, which we
Speaker 2: do talk space with the large with a significant number
Speaker 2: of employers. Is it improved, First of all, decreases people
Speaker 2: are absent, It increases productivity, and it makes the workforce happier.
Speaker 2: So the impact, it is hard to measure, but it's enormous.
Speaker 1: So those days are over when you wouldn't tell your
Speaker 1: boss or would be afraid.
Speaker 2: So we have In addition to I talked about the
Speaker 2: cover network, we still have a consumer is meeting people
Speaker 2: who still directly come to us to pay for therapy
Speaker 2: out of installa of using their insurance. And the reason
Speaker 2: is is there's still some people who say, I'm not
Speaker 2: sure who I want to know. I'd rather pay for
Speaker 2: it out of pocket.
Speaker 3: I'd rather just not have people though, So I don't
Speaker 3: think that's.
Speaker 2: Ever going to go away completely. But it's much less
Speaker 2: than it was years ago, much much less.
Speaker 1: So you bring up affordability, how much does it cost
Speaker 1: or does it depend and how much does insurance cover?
Speaker 1: And what about people who don't have insurance.
Speaker 2: So the average out of pocket cost if you're covered
Speaker 2: by insurer right now is about fifteen dollars. The majority
Speaker 2: of people have no out of pocket because we're covered.
Speaker 2: We're a covering service.
Speaker 1: Now you're expanding the Medicare coverage, right, so we.
Speaker 2: Just went we were by the well it's December. By
Speaker 2: the end of this year, we will be in just
Speaker 2: about every all fifty states. It turns out you have
Speaker 2: to go state by state for Medicare, even though it's national.
Speaker 2: So we've made a big effort to cover Medicare, you know,
Speaker 2: elderly adults, and that will launch really January first of
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. The reason being, of course, is twenty
Speaker 2: five percent of people over the age of sixty five
Speaker 2: have a diagnosable mental health condition, which is usually loneliness
Speaker 2: and slash depression. Almost forty percent of people feel socially isolated,
Speaker 2: So we know that it is a very significant issue
Speaker 2: relative to the older population. So we've launched into medicare.
Speaker 2: There people have standard medicare as you may know, where
Speaker 2: you get eighty percent covered and then you have other insurance,
Speaker 2: or people are in Medicare advantage programs where there's no
Speaker 2: out of pocket.
Speaker 1: Is that a fast growing population for you all? Because again,
Speaker 1: those are people. I mean, I'm going to be sixty
Speaker 1: eight in January, good lord, and I think that's still
Speaker 1: a population that might feel less comfortable with therapy or
Speaker 1: talking about their problems. Right. So the I'm not by
Speaker 1: the way, so I.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't say the jury's out. The jury hasn't even been seen.
Speaker 2: Meaning we're just getting into medicare. We believe that it's
Speaker 2: we know it's an enormous need. So we have a
Speaker 2: whole plan to roll this out in terms of how
Speaker 2: do we tell people about it, how do we get
Speaker 2: them comfortable with it? So there's been some questions raised about, well,
Speaker 2: you know, our seniors going to use it. So my
Speaker 2: view is, like the teens, is we need to spend
Speaker 2: a lot of time educating people and telling them about
Speaker 2: what they can do. We also have to spend time
Speaker 2: with their caregivers, which frequently is their children who are
Speaker 2: taking care of their parents and getting them come. Frequently
Speaker 2: it's the children of the seniors that actually want the
Speaker 2: support more than the seniors want the support because they're dealing,
Speaker 2: you know, they're in between, they're dealing with their kids
Speaker 2: and then they're dealing with their parents. So we're about
Speaker 2: to launch. We'll see how we believe it will be successful.
Speaker 2: We know that the need is very high. There's been
Speaker 2: some question about well we'll seniors use the technology. My
Speaker 2: view we talked about earlier. If you're a grandparent, ask
Speaker 2: any grandparent, they know how to get on to their phones,
Speaker 2: they know how to talk to their grandchildren, and they
Speaker 2: know how to FaceTime them. So I think the technology
Speaker 2: piece is not of much concern to us. We do
Speaker 2: have the data on people use the technology from if
Speaker 2: you're sixty five to seventy eight at seventy eighty, so
Speaker 2: there is a fall off after eighty years old in
Speaker 2: terms of certain abilities. But we do encourage people when
Speaker 2: they sign up and use it to find somebody to
Speaker 2: help them.
Speaker 1: And that's going to change as population ages, because people
Speaker 1: are becoming more proficient on their phone and that's not
Speaker 1: going to change right as they get older. You're now
Speaker 1: focused on the military population as well. Why and how.
Speaker 2: So Military there's ten million military and dependents. We just
Speaker 2: got into network with the coverage of the military, which
Speaker 2: is you know, it's called tricaren Try West, So that's
Speaker 2: also just being launched. The suicide rate, as you as
Speaker 2: you mentioned earlier, is high in the military. The amount
Speaker 2: of you know, PTSD is obviously very high. It's a
Speaker 2: little bit different for active military versus independence. We are
Speaker 2: very early on, but we know that there's a significant
Speaker 2: interest in the military spouses and children of active military
Speaker 2: that are looking for mental support. So that's a that's
Speaker 2: also a work in progress, just launched.
Speaker 1: If you want to get smarter every morning with a
Speaker 1: breakdown of the news and fascinating takes on health and
Speaker 1: wellness and pop culture, sign up for our daily newsletter,
Speaker 1: Wake Up Call by going to Katiecuric dot com. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the youth mental health crisis. It's something that
Speaker 1: I've been very interested in and it's super concerning, as
Speaker 1: you well know. I mean, you look at some of
Speaker 1: the statistics. Teen mental health had already begun worsening prior
Speaker 1: to the pandemic. By twenty twenty one, more than forty
Speaker 1: percent of high schoolers reported feeling persistently sad or hopeless,
Speaker 1: and experts expect the trend to continue. What is eating
Speaker 1: the nation's children.
Speaker 2: It is a crisis, an unparallel crisis. And you probably
Speaker 2: see the Surgeon General report about social media.
Speaker 1: Fiction and also Jonathan Height's book The Anxious Generation. And yes,
Speaker 1: you know, it's so funny. When I was at CBS
Speaker 1: in the early two thousands, I wanted to do something
Speaker 1: on phone addiction, and they all thought I was crazy,
Speaker 1: But you know, I thought it was tearing apart families,
Speaker 1: that people weren't spending time together, that it was taking
Speaker 1: over people's lives. Anyway, that's me patting myself on the
Speaker 1: back for being prescient. But yes, it feels like we
Speaker 1: have reached a tipping point finally in understanding the negative
Speaker 1: impact of phone addiction.
Speaker 2: So you mentioned some of the data we know that
Speaker 2: twenty to twenty five percent of teenagers on intake have
Speaker 2: had suicidal ideation. It's which blows me away. I remember
Speaker 2: seeing the data for the first time. It's just unbelievable
Speaker 2: to me to think that that's what's happening. So I don't,
Speaker 2: so why is why is the crisis? You know here
Speaker 2: at the phone issue is unquestionably, you know, propelling a
Speaker 2: lot of this, the social media addiction. So I don't
Speaker 2: know if you've you know, I've talked about, but the
Speaker 2: average number of hours a teenager is on their phone
Speaker 2: is eight eight hours a day right on their phone.
Speaker 2: And of course it's not just the it's not just
Speaker 2: the social media that they're looking at. It's the dangers, right,
Speaker 2: So you talk about suicide right being aware, it's of
Speaker 2: course the inappropriate content, it's the cyper bullying, it's the
Speaker 2: issues about being recruited to do something really bad.
Speaker 1: And then just old fashioned self esteem issues right where
Speaker 1: you see people living their best life on social media
Speaker 1: and it makes you feel bad about yourself, or with
Speaker 1: girls and eating disorders, and.
Speaker 2: Then there's so the social media adiction is obviously a
Speaker 2: huge issue. So it's real, so't I don't predict that
Speaker 2: you're going to be able to get kids off their phone.
Speaker 2: I will tell you that having seen this, read about it,
Speaker 2: see what's going on. I think I told you I
Speaker 2: have a seven and a half and a four and
Speaker 2: a half year old grandchildren. Terror it's terrifying to me
Speaker 2: about you know, what are you know what's my daughter?
Speaker 3: And it's a looging to do about, you know, phones
Speaker 3: with these kids.
Speaker 1: Well, I think people who have kids that age are
Speaker 1: starting to realize how dangerous they are. And you know,
Speaker 1: by the way, so I have a grandson too, who
Speaker 1: just turned eight months, and I was thinking, when Ellie
Speaker 1: is with him, if she's on her phone, she's modeling
Speaker 1: a certain behavior. So it's not just not giving kids
Speaker 1: phones until they're fifteen or sixteen. It's not having them
Speaker 1: as such an ubiquitous force in their lives, right.
Speaker 2: And it's just so it is difficult. We're not going
Speaker 2: to totally solve that. So so it talks to us.
Speaker 2: We've leaned in on teens, as I said, So we
Speaker 2: have the We talked about New York City, We just
Speaker 2: announced Seattle another fifty five thousand students. We have Baltimore,
Speaker 2: and then we have a bunch of other private schools
Speaker 2: in other districts. So the one of the so what's
Speaker 2: become very important of us is because we're actually using
Speaker 2: their phone to some benefit, which is texting the messaging therapy.
Speaker 3: You know. We found that it's you know.
Speaker 2: Very very important and attractive for the student to be
Speaker 2: able to access it, and so most of them are
Speaker 2: accessing it actually after school just you know, after four pm.
Speaker 2: Turns out after four pm on Thursdays is the most
Speaker 2: popular time. But what's also important is we in twenty
Speaker 2: nineteen talks based reported on a large language model AI
Speaker 2: slash ability to actually predict suicide based on a conversation.
Speaker 1: That's so fascinating to me. How can you in simple terms,
Speaker 1: how that works.
Speaker 2: So what it is is we looked at all of
Speaker 2: the millions of conversations and was able to identify with
Speaker 2: kids at risk certain words and phrases in the context
Speaker 2: of the conversation that will alert the therapist of possible
Speaker 2: self harm for the for that person and now teenager
Speaker 2: because we've revalidated in teens. So it's so let me
Speaker 2: it's let me describe it this way because his way
Speaker 2: is debscribed to me, because I you know I knew
Speaker 2: nothing about this, certainly several you know, several months ago.
Speaker 3: Is some of the things we do is what's.
Speaker 2: Called bag of words. So here here's the context. If
Speaker 2: I say to you, look at these four words, and
Speaker 2: I'm going to say a crib, a rattle, a doll,
Speaker 2: and you know, uh, another toy. That's obvious and those
Speaker 2: words all belong together, right. But if I said to
Speaker 2: you a rattle, a crib, a diaper, and a knife,
Speaker 2: say well, like okay, something's wrong. That's a simplistic way
Speaker 2: of what's called bag of words. So what the what
Speaker 2: the engine does It looks at the conversation and it
Speaker 2: is able to actually pick out words and phrases. Is
Speaker 2: that are key to determining whether or not a person
Speaker 2: is thinking about self harm. It's unbelievably fascinating. Now it
Speaker 2: doesn't mean, it doesn't mean yeah. So it's eighty six
Speaker 2: percent accurate, and we've actually dialed it to be more
Speaker 2: false positive because what you want to do is is
Speaker 2: have more false positives. Obviously, so we reported this back
Speaker 2: in twenty nineteen. Since we report So what happens when
Speaker 2: you're on a texting messaging platform on talkspace the engine
Speaker 2: is running in the background, and what it does is
Speaker 2: it sends an alert to the therapist and then the
Speaker 2: therapist decides whether it's real or not real.
Speaker 1: That's scary and big responsibility, isn't it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's like other healthcare alerts.
Speaker 2: It's it's like having telling your primary care physician, Oh,
Speaker 2: you know, Katie just had her blood's drawn. Her potassium
Speaker 2: is six. We want to make sure that you've seen
Speaker 2: that because that's really dangerous. So there are a lot
Speaker 2: of alerts that go on in medicine. So what this
Speaker 2: is and there may be a reason for it. So
Speaker 2: the therapis then has a discretion Okay, this is real
Speaker 2: or it's not real, and then has to decide how
Speaker 2: to has it, deal with it, or refer the patient
Speaker 2: to a higher level of care. So since twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: we've had it's over thirty two thousand alerts on the.
Speaker 1: Platform that people are risk of self harm.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: We're running it, of course with the teens, and you know,
Speaker 2: we've had alerts that we've been able to intervene on.
Speaker 2: It's a proprietary algorithm. We don't think anybody else has it.
Speaker 2: We are also looking at alerts right now for harm,
Speaker 2: both homicidal tendencies. We're also looking at eating disorders. We're
Speaker 2: also looking at abuse. So what we're doing is using
Speaker 2: the engine.
Speaker 1: Abuse someone who is being abused being abused.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, there is more than you want to.
Speaker 1: Know about domestic violence.
Speaker 2: It means basic violence referrals we've had to make to
Speaker 2: child's protective services. Yeah, it's more than.
Speaker 3: You want to know.
Speaker 2: What we're doing is we're trying to we're finding it right.
Speaker 2: So the power What you want to do is give
Speaker 2: the therapists the ability to make decisions. What we don't do,
Speaker 2: which I'm a huge believer in, is is I'm not
Speaker 2: going to tell a therapist how.
Speaker 3: To give care.
Speaker 2: What I'm going to do is give them the alerts
Speaker 2: and let them decide. And we don't just you know,
Speaker 2: we don't do AI bots or anything like that. We
Speaker 2: will not do AI therapy.
Speaker 3: So this is a.
Speaker 1: Support MESA are some people doing, yes, yeah, there are some.
Speaker 2: There are some some people out there who are doing
Speaker 2: AI supporting.
Speaker 1: Like chap GPT stuff.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so that's what we're doing on the teen side.
Speaker 1: The UH and so you said you've had thirty two.
Speaker 3: Thousand alerts since twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: Is there any way to quantify how many suicides you've
Speaker 1: intervened in or potential suicides?
Speaker 2: So that's an amaz amazing question and the answer is no,
Speaker 2: because we don't really know. We're again HIPPOC compliant. People
Speaker 2: could leave therapy. We don't know where that we can.
Speaker 2: We can't follow up and say, hey, what happened to
Speaker 2: this person, So we don't know the answer. We've tried,
Speaker 2: actually we've tried to use some surrogate analysis, but we've
Speaker 2: been unable to, you know, to determine whether or not
Speaker 2: how many people have gone on.
Speaker 1: What about the effectiveness of working with these teens in
Speaker 1: the New York City public schools? You say you're going
Speaker 1: to do another program in Seattle, right, is there any
Speaker 1: way of knowing the efficacy of talks based therapy for
Speaker 1: these kids? How do you measure if it's working and
Speaker 1: what kind of feedback have you gotten?
Speaker 2: So the program for New York City is for all
Speaker 2: teenagers who live in New York. It's not just public schools.
Speaker 2: So whether it's parochial schools or yeshivas or charter schools,
Speaker 2: any kid thirteen to seventeen has access. And that was
Speaker 2: the decision. That's the mayor decided that when he did
Speaker 2: the program was that's how he wanted it. He wanted
Speaker 2: to make it available to everybody.
Speaker 3: So we do have one year into the New York
Speaker 3: City program. We have one year data.
Speaker 2: We've had almost seventy percent improvement in terms of clinical outcome.
Speaker 2: I think I talked about we're reaching kids where they are,
Speaker 2: which is in all you know, all sorts of communities.
Speaker 2: What's interesting is the top diagnoses or problem is actually
Speaker 2: being a better self. Second is relationships, and then it
Speaker 2: drops off to anxiety slash depression, bullying relatively low, which
Speaker 2: was a surprise to us. But the relationship thing and
Speaker 2: being a better self is really important. And we had
Speaker 2: done a bunch of focus groups before we launched, and
Speaker 2: it was very clear the kids, I say, they want access,
Speaker 2: they wanted immediately, and they wanted you know, almost whenever.
Speaker 3: They could get it. So we've basically solved that issue.
Speaker 1: When you say relationship.
Speaker 2: My relationships with family or relationship with friends, they'll say,
Speaker 2: I have an issue with a friend, I have an
Speaker 2: issue with my parents, I have an issue with so
Speaker 2: help me talk me, you know, the therapist, help me
Speaker 2: get through that. Do I how do I deal with
Speaker 2: those kind of familial problems or other problems that they have.
Speaker 2: The the being a better self just means they want
Speaker 2: to be better at who they are, they want to
Speaker 2: be more self aware.
Speaker 1: It's really a full fascinating it is area, and I
Speaker 1: think you're right as a physician. If you see a
Speaker 1: need and you have the capacity to fill it, that
Speaker 1: must be incredibly gratifying.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's a I'll tell yes, love of everything else,
Speaker 2: we're doing good, that we're doing a lot of good,
Speaker 2: which makes you know, all of us feel really good
Speaker 2: about what we're doing every day.
Speaker 1: How do you increase awareness that this is out there?
Speaker 1: And like, let's say I'm like, oh, I really enjoyed
Speaker 1: talking to doctor Cohen. I want to be a part
Speaker 1: of talk space. I want I don't have a therapist.
Speaker 1: Actually I don't have a therapist, and you know, I
Speaker 1: want to find a therapist. Do I go to an app?
Speaker 1: To what do I do?
Speaker 2: So there's multiple ways that essentially you go on to
Speaker 2: talkspace dot com. For the teens, it's actually it's New
Speaker 2: York City teen Space.
Speaker 1: What about other teens across the nation? Is it available
Speaker 1: to them? Or not yet, so.
Speaker 2: It is if it is to their to their parents' insurance.
Speaker 2: So the difference is.
Speaker 1: You have to go be hard because sometimes you don't
Speaker 1: want to go on and tell their parents.
Speaker 2: Well, that's another interesting issues parental consent. We do get
Speaker 2: parental consent through the process. It's all part of the
Speaker 2: digital intake. We send an email to the parents, they
Speaker 2: mail us back their consent. There are exceptions that you
Speaker 2: cannot have to get parents consent. There is certain kids
Speaker 2: who are, you know, by the court, deemed independent. There
Speaker 2: are kids that are married, they're kids that have children,
Speaker 2: and then they are just kids that will come on
Speaker 2: and say I don't want to tell my parents, and
Speaker 2: then what happens. They have a conversation with the therapist
Speaker 2: and then the therapists will make the ultimate decision with the
Speaker 2: child about whether or not they're at risk and whether.
Speaker 3: They should tell their parents.
Speaker 2: So we have an entire consenting mechanism that's built in,
Speaker 2: so that's an important part of it. But most teens,
Speaker 2: if you get it through one of the programs. The
Speaker 2: reason it's so important that there's a program that pays
Speaker 2: for it is because you don't want to have a
Speaker 2: teenager to say, okay, well what's your parents insurance? Go
Speaker 2: get their insurance card, fill out the information. As we
Speaker 2: said earlier, the number one barrier we know is cost
Speaker 2: or having to identify costs. So sure every teenager across
Speaker 2: the country has access, but those other teenagers have to
Speaker 2: go through their insurance, which is a barrier.
Speaker 3: It's always a barrier.
Speaker 1: And I can't believe you don't have a shortage of therapists.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you talk about the flex schedule
Speaker 1: and everything, but I mean I've heard for a long
Speaker 1: time that it's just there aren't enough there therapists for
Speaker 1: all the patients out there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: We then they're unfortunately referred to as ghost networks. So
Speaker 2: you've probably heard the term. No, okay, so there's a term.
Speaker 2: It's called ghost networks for the payers, which means if
Speaker 2: you try and get a therapist frequently, if you find
Speaker 2: somebody and you check the not taking new patients, or
Speaker 2: it's a three month wait to get it right.
Speaker 1: Yes, so how do you combat that?
Speaker 3: Right now?
Speaker 2: For us, it's not potission and we do know that
Speaker 2: quod Hotly, the therapists mostly like being on the talkspace platform.
Speaker 2: We made it very easy for them. They don't, they
Speaker 2: just have to come on in New therapy, we do
Speaker 2: all the billing and collection and our step and we
Speaker 2: educate them and we provide a network for them. We
Speaker 2: provide you know, other people for them to talk for us.
Speaker 2: So it's not it's not just that they're coming on talkspace,
Speaker 2: but they're they're becoming part of a very large community
Speaker 2: that helps them, you know, be better at what they do.
Speaker 1: Also, I always tell young people to go into therapy.
Speaker 1: Talk about a growth industry, right, don't go into media.
Speaker 1: Become a therapist.
Speaker 2: Sounds right, It sounds about right. So, but yes, we
Speaker 2: are always recruiting.
Speaker 1: Do you do group therapy?
Speaker 2: No, we do peer to peer, which is it's not
Speaker 2: really group, but it's peer to peer support. We also
Speaker 2: have launched and we don't do we don't really do coaching, right,
Speaker 2: So would.
Speaker 1: You ever get into group therapy which is very effective.
Speaker 2: We we've talked about it, and like I like to
Speaker 2: talk about I like to stay in our lane. What
Speaker 2: I mean by that is there's so much need for
Speaker 2: what we have right now. I want to continue to
Speaker 2: focus the company on what we do best, which is
Speaker 2: what we're doing right now.
Speaker 1: Do you have anyone who specializes, say in cognitive behavioral therapy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no, all the basically every therapist does. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because that's how they're their license. Remember all our all
Speaker 2: of our therapists are licensed. You know, they're fully licensed
Speaker 2: to deliver therapy in the state that they're in and
Speaker 2: each state has different rules and ranks.
Speaker 1: Have you tried talk space?
Speaker 3: I have, yes, So.
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of a personal question. You don't
Speaker 1: have to necessarily answer that. What I mean, I would think,
Speaker 1: as the CEO, you would want to test your product.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so what I've done it actually twice to test
Speaker 2: the product and see what the therapists do and to
Speaker 2: try the intake. But yes, I've tried. I've taken it
Speaker 2: to a certain point. But beyond that, it would be
Speaker 2: difficult for me to have one of my own therapists
Speaker 2: obviously take.
Speaker 3: Care of me.
Speaker 1: And by the way, I mean talk about a need
Speaker 1: the medical community, I mean we saw during COVID the
Speaker 1: amount of burnout among medical professionals, nurses and doctors and
Speaker 1: people who work in hospitals was so high, so many
Speaker 1: people left the profession. Is that a population you're kind
Speaker 1: of reaching out to?
Speaker 2: So, right, at the beginning when I first got there,
Speaker 2: talks I said, had done actually not only delivering therapy
Speaker 2: to healthcare workers. Did a study he was six hundred
Speaker 2: plus healthcare workers, thirty five percent of them were new
Speaker 2: to therapy, described an enormous need, you know, watching what.
Speaker 3: Was going on.
Speaker 1: By the way, can I just interject one thing, John,
Speaker 1: I thought during COVID that hospitals could have done a
Speaker 1: much better job of providing mental health support. I mean,
Speaker 1: I know, everybody's hair was on fire. And I'm not
Speaker 1: being critical. I just think that was a huge vacuum
Speaker 1: at the time.
Speaker 2: So we did, we were providing it. We saw fifty
Speaker 2: I think it was fifty percent improvement within four weeks.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And there were a lot of healthcare workers who were
Speaker 2: texting and messaging the therapist and getting online to be
Speaker 2: able to you know, help them through. It was an enormously,
Speaker 2: as you said, difficult time for healthcare providers. I mean
Speaker 2: we were, because I'm here, you know, we were at
Speaker 2: almost ground zero for COVID in the Northeast at the beginning.
Speaker 3: I remember, yeah, me too.
Speaker 1: Is there anything you'd say to people who are still
Speaker 1: reticent about getting mental health care or the word therapy
Speaker 1: kind of still freaks them out a bit.
Speaker 2: I think it's the message is to try it. It's
Speaker 2: very easy, it's very affordable. Is to try it and
Speaker 2: see if it makes a difference in your life. I
Speaker 2: would say to parents to encourage their kids if there's
Speaker 2: an issue and there's still a stigma in certain populations
Speaker 2: for parents who don't want to talk about this with
Speaker 2: their kids, and I would encourage parents to also have
Speaker 2: their kids sign up.
Speaker 1: That's one interesting thing that I've learned recently that I
Speaker 1: think a lot of parents, with the number of kids
Speaker 1: who have suicidal ideation, I think for so long parents
Speaker 1: felt like they shouldn't talk about it or bring it up.
Speaker 1: But my understanding is that it's okay to say to
Speaker 1: a child, do you feel like harming yourself? Do you
Speaker 1: think about hurting yourself? That that's okay. We don't have
Speaker 1: to necessarily talk about this because you're not a therapist.
Speaker 1: But I'm just curious what you're understanding is.
Speaker 2: I certainly would encourage it one hundred percent. I mean,
Speaker 2: I think any conversation is good. Yeah, there's yes, there's
Speaker 2: a kids it's just never talking to their parents.
Speaker 1: Also, you're afraid you're going to put the idea in
Speaker 1: their head.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, let me tell you if you don't, they
Speaker 2: have plenty of access where that's going to go in
Speaker 2: their head. I mean the amount of unfortunately on the
Speaker 2: social media stuff, whether whatever platform you're on, not criticizing
Speaker 2: any particular platform, there's all of these things out there
Speaker 2: relative to putting thoughts in the kids' heads that you
Speaker 2: don't want them. And that's again why the whole issue
Speaker 2: right now is about how you regulate social media, how
Speaker 2: you know what's appropriate, how do you prevent it, how
Speaker 2: do you alert kids.
Speaker 3: It's an enormous problem.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the General said, it's the greatest sorts
Speaker 2: of children lives is social media.
Speaker 3: It's greater than cigarettes smoking right now.
Speaker 1: And I'm happy to hear so many schools are starting
Speaker 1: to say no phones during school hours. I'm taking them away, Tally.
Speaker 2: I couldn't agree with you more. We've had the discussion.
Speaker 2: They say, well, you're providing therapy on your phone. You
Speaker 2: have an issues, said absolutely not take the phones away,
Speaker 2: you know during school hours, one hundred percent. You know
Speaker 2: they could get therapy after hours. They don't need to
Speaker 2: have their phone, you know during school it's a huge issue.
Speaker 1: Doctor John Cohen aka John, Yes, I can call you that.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being on Next Question.
Speaker 3: My pleasure.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the privilege actually, and it really is
Speaker 2: a privilege and honor to sit here and talk to
Speaker 2: you about this and to get the word out.
Speaker 3: So thank you for doing this.
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, thanks for listening everyone. If you have a
Speaker 1: question for me, a subject you want us to cover,
Speaker 1: or you want to share your thoughts about how you
Speaker 1: navigate this crazy world, reach out send me a DM
Speaker 1: on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. Next
Speaker 1: Question is a production of iHeartMedia and Katie Couric Media.
Speaker 1: The executive producers are Me, Katie Kuric, and Courtney Ltz.
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Ryan Martz, and our producers are
Speaker 1: Adriana Fazzio and Meredith Barnes. Julian Weller composed our theme music.
Speaker 1: For more information about today's episode, or to sign up
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