The majority of college students — more than 60% — meet the criteria for at least one mental health condition. But many colleges don’t have the bandwidth to support these students: the average annual caseload for a typical full-time college counselor is 120 students. At some centers, the average is more than 300 students per counselor.
To reduce this burden on college counselors and support more college students, Lightfully Behavioral Health launched last week Lightfully U, a virtual intensive outpatient program that cares for students ages 18 to 25. Thousand Oaks, California-based Lightfully Behavioral Health offers personalized mental health treatment for adults and teens. The company is in-network with most major payers and treats patients for trauma-related disorders, personality disorders, anxiety disorders, mood disorders and symptoms of suicidality.
Lightfully U treats patients with these same conditions and offers primary and family therapy, access to a psychiatrist, group sessions, team meetings, experiential activities and alumni support. The group sessions will focus on areas that are specific to college students, such as navigating the transition to adulthood or dealing with issues related to intimacy.
Patients will typically be with Lightfully U for three hours a day for three days a week, but they will be able to select the schedule that works best for them. Most of these patients will be going through their insurance to receive care from Lightfully.
While Lightfully Behavioral Health was already treating people aged 18 to 25, the company realized that a product specifically designed for this group was needed after seeing how many college students were seeking care. This is especially necessary considering the staffing challenges many student health centers have, according to Andie Hollowell, chief growth officer at Lightfully Behavioral Health.
“The student health centers obviously have the best of intentions,” Hollowell said in an interview. “They’re trying to do the best that they can. They just don’t have enough staff or staff that are trained in higher-level acuity diagnoses. Quite frankly, they shouldn’t be. They’re managing students that come in at an outpatient level and sometimes that’s not the most appropriate place for some of those students. If we can do something to help the students both get the care that they need and then also keep them in school at the same time, that feels like a win-win to us.”
Lightfully will be tracking its college patients over time. The company does weekly assessments with patients to understand how they’re progressing. When it comes to its adult patients, the company has shown a 41% reduction in depression scores, a 45% reduction in anxiety scores and a 32% reduction in PTSD scores, according to data shared with MedCity News.
More digital health companies are starting to focus on specific populations and age groups. Other virtual mental health companies that cater to college students include TimelyCare and BetterMynd. BeMe Health, meanwhile, solely focuses on the mental health of adolescents, while Author Health supports seniors with serious mental illness and substance use disorders. NOCD is another digital mental health company, but it focuses on patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Included Health, which offers primary care and behavioral health support, provides dedicated services for LGBTQ+ and Black patients.
In the future, Hollowell said she anticipates seeing more of an emphasis on supporting patients “no matter where they’re at in their mental health journey.”
“What I think is the company of the future is not the company that can just manage those at the outpatient level, but a company that offers a fuller spectrum of care,” she said. “We know as clinicians that someone may be fine with a week-by-week outpatient therapy session at one moment, but maybe something else happens. Maybe there’s a bigger life stressor that happens and that person then needs a higher level of care.”
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