A Behavioral Health Provider’s Guide to Job Matching

As a mental health professional, you understand the importance of finding a meaningful job that aligns with your values and supports your overall well-being. With so many organizations needing a helping hand these days, finding the perfect fit can be challenging. Luckily, when working with an organization that provides job matching services, you can successfully navigate the job-hunting process.

This guide aims to help you learn how job matching works, what it looks like in action, and how it can set you up for long-term success at the organization of your dreams.

At Iris, all our providers benefit from the Iris Match – which is our promise that each one of our providers will be set up with what we like to call a happily ever after match. We get to know our providers to ensure we can find the right job or clinic placement. We pride ourselves on being upfront with all of the necessary details that will affect your day-to-day and job satisfaction. From the clinical setting to the scheduling details to our prescribing philosophy, we are committed to ensuring the role is the right match for you.

If you’re interested in learning more about telemental health positions at Iris, you can visit our psychiatry or LCSW careers page or read through our clinician FAQ.

Why You Should Care About Provider Fit

At Iris Telehealth, we know first-hand how critical good provider fit is to not only maintaining providers long-term, but quality of care and patient satisfaction as well. But, there’s more to finding the right fit than just finding a provider who meets your organization’s qualifications on paper. That’s why we put together this infographic to help organizations ensure they’re finding the right providers for their team and for their patients. Check it out to learn more about the pitfalls of bad provider fit and what your organization should be looking for as you vet your behavioral health providers.

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Want to share or reference this infographic? Download it here!

Iris Telehealth partner organization all benefit from what we call “The Iris Match.” The Iris Match is our promise to you that we will ensure your Iris provider will meet your organization’s needs, culture, and values. We guarantee that by the end of our match process, you’ll have a provider who will not only fill your care gaps, but who your care team and your patients will love. If you’re interested in learning more about partnering with Iris, contact us today and we’ll get the conversation started.

Iris Telehealth Raises $40 Million in Series B Funding Round to Combat Behavioral Healthcare Crisis

Virtual mental health company to grow clinical operations, commercial, and technology teams to help health systems and community health centers deliver timely and appropriate care to patients in need.

Iris Telehealth (“Iris”), a leading provider of telepsychiatry services for health systems and community health centers across the U.S., today announced that it has raised $40 million in Series B funding, led by Concord Health Partners. With this funding, Iris will accelerate its plans to improve outcomes for patients with serious mental illness by further assisting their partner healthcare organizations in helping care for and triage patients across the continuum, matching the right next level of care with each patient.

Founded in 2013, Iris is dedicated to delivering quality, sustainable behavioral health care so organizations can better support the patients who need it most. Serving almost 200 hospitals and community health centers, Iris has grown exponentially over the last 18 months, as healthcare organizations seek to provide timely, quality care to their patients. Iris’s combination of high-quality providers, best-in-class support, expertise to optimize care models, and technology has enabled healthcare providers to reimagine how behavioral health services are provided across the continuum of care.

Concord Health Partners (“Concord”) invests in expansion stage healthcare companies with innovative technologies and services that lower costs, improve quality, and expand access to care. Concord has a strategic partnership with the American Hospital Association (AHA) and a broad base of strategic limited partners to support portfolio companies and accelerate growth.

“Iris has an impressive track record of partnering with health systems and other providers to enhance behavioral health services by facilitating access to the appropriate level of care,” said James Olsen, Founder and Managing Partner of Concord Health Partners. “We are excited to support Iris, expand its reach and further enhance its technology capabilities.”

Columbia Pacific Advisors was an initial Iris investor and is now expanding its commitment to further support the Company as it expands access to much-needed behavioral health care services.

“We have seen Iris grow for many years and believe it is just getting started,” said Stan Baty, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Columbia Pacific Advisors. “We look forward to helping the Company scale to support more healthcare organizations and patients in need of quality behavioral health care.”

“For the past nine years, Iris’s goal has been to provide high-quality virtual behavioral health services to help healthcare organizations increase access to life-saving care and improve patient outcomes,” said Andy Flanagan, CEO of Iris Telehealth. “This funding will help us quickly scale our services to support more healthcare organizations. We plan to leverage this funding to make a positive, long-term impact on mental health care in communities across the country.”

With behavioral health patients accounting for 56% of total health costs and 77% of U.S. counties facing a psychiatrist shortage, providing timely, quality care to patients with serious mental illness has never been more critical – or challenging. Through this capital, Iris plans to help address this challenge by investing in four main areas to accelerate the expansion of its behavioral health services:

  • Expanding the clinical operations team to meet growing customer demand and ensure long-term customer health.
  • Scaling the go-to-market strategy to deliver quality, sustainable behavioral health care to more enterprise health systems and community health centers.
  • Enhancing the product and technology capabilities to help health systems manage patients across the continuum, ensuring the right patient is receiving the right care at the right time.
  • Augmenting the team of clinical and corporate employees to meet the increasing needs of patients and partners while maintaining a culture that is supportive, connected, and rooted in the shared mission of helping organizations meet their goals through exceptional care.
About Iris Telehealth

Iris Telehealth helps healthcare organizations consistently increase access to quality mental healthcare for their patients by providing the clinicians, staff support, and knowledge to build a sustainable telepsychiatry department. With clinical grounding and emphasis on human relationships, Iris Telehealth identifies best-fit providers for each unique organization and ensures long-term commitment to meeting their partner’s needs, allowing them to provide the highest quality care to their patients and community.

About Concord Health Partners

Concord Health Partners (“Concord”) is a healthcare private equity firm that invests in growth-stage companies with innovative technologies and solutions that advance healthcare through lower costs, improved quality and expanded access to care. The Concord team is comprised of healthcare sector specialists with deep industry knowledge and a broad network of strategic relationships. For more information, please visit concordhp.com.

View the original release on PR Newswire.

Finding the Psychiatry Job of Your Dreams

Job hunting can be a stressful process, and there’s a lot to consider when navigating your next career move. That’s why we’ve created a comprehensive guide to help you determine what questions you should be asking during the interview process, your non-negotiables, and what a career in telepsychiatry might look like.

We hope this checklist helps you make the right decisions for your long-term psychiatry career — all while maintaining the work-life balance you’ve always dreamed of.

For many providers, telepsychiatry can tick all the boxes. But one of the reasons Iris providers love it so much is because of the low-stress environment. Because of the nature of remote work, the computer screen can help create a barrier that gives providers time to step away, take movement breaks, and ultimately help lower compassion fatigue.

Telepsychiatry can also help patients feel more comfortable, creating a greater sense of privacy that may help them open up more than they might in person.

If you’re interested in learning more about telepsychiatry positions at Iris, you can visit our psychiatry careers page or read through our clinician FAQ.

The Annual State of Behavioral Health – 2022 Edition

As we look out at the behavioral health landscape ahead of us in 2022, there’s a lot to feel hopeful about and a lot to consider. With telehealth’s widespread consumer acceptance and organizational adoption, healthcare organizations are well-positioned to make meaningful and sustainable changes.

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How Swope Health and Iris Telehealth Delivered Accessible, High-Quality Care to the Community

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How Swope Health and Iris Telehealth Delivered Accessible, High-Quality Care to the Community

“Our Iris Telehealth provider is highly skilled and helped us improve access for our patients immediately. Incorporating teletherapy into what we already do at Swope Health has been an important piece of the puzzle that makes it all work.”
Karen Suddath
Deputy Director of Behavioral Health, Swope Health

 

Since August 2021, Iris Telehealth has provided high-quality behavioral health support to Swope Health’s patient population through teletherapy.

Background

Swope Health is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and a Community Behavioral Health Center (CCBHC) delivering comprehensive healthcare services to people living in the greater Kansas City area. They provide same-day telehealth services, transportation assistance, and mobile programs, meeting their community’s needs with high-quality care, counseling, and treatment. As champions of community health, they provide a team-based, integrated care approach that’s personalized to the unique needs of their population.

Challenges

Swope Health works to meet patient needs with immediate access to high-quality care. However, like many healthcare organizations across the country, facilitating this level of access was Swope’s number one challenge. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, finding the right provider match for their organization was becoming increasingly difficult. As they were figuring out how to adapt to a new world, they knew they would need access to resources and additional help quickly.

However, Swope began facing new challenges with recruiting, and their old hiring strategies weren’t working anymore. They knew they needed a highly-skilled provider who would require little clinical oversight, have the correct licensure, and be comfortable with technology. However, their local provider pool was insufficient, and they couldn’t find someone in their area to help fill in the gaps for their organization. That’s where Iris Telehealth came in.

Solution

Iris Telehealth worked closely with the team at Swope to find the perfect provider who could integrate seamlessly into their organization. Fortunately, due to their team’s experience with digital health during the COVID-19 pandemic, they were well accustomed to working in a virtual environment. By making teletherapy available to their community, Swope was able to help their community get the care they needed.

Swope has even extended their reach into local homeless shelters, where they’ve set up iPads, allowing residents to speak with a therapist when needed. Swope’s innovative approach doesn’t stop there – they’re even considering investing in soundproof booths where patients can engage in their telepsychiatry and teletherapy appointments privately.

Results

Since partnering with Iris, Swope has seen show rates increase by 5% and has been able to substantially reduce their patient waiting lists. In addition to the enhanced convenience for patients, Swope has found the perfect provider match for their organization. This success is due to Iris’s rigorous approach to provider matching.

At Iris, all providers complete a thorough vetting and interview process that includes multiple video interviews, detailed reference checks, and work history verification. Because of this strategy, Swope could secure a highly-skilled provider for their organization. They noted that the provider quickly integrated into their organization and helped them meet their goal of improving access to care immediately.

Additionally, Swope Health was one of the first CCBHCs to utilize a prospective payment system rate (PPS) instead of fee-for-service, allowing them to spend more focused time connecting with patients. Since their CCBHC designation, they’ve become more data-driven, and access has been consistently at the top of their list. As a quality-focused organization, Iris has been able to help them meet their goals and increase access to compassionate and dedicated behavioral health providers.

Telehealth is another tool that adds to the impactful and incredible work Swope Health is doing for its community. To learn more about Swope Health, you can visit their website here.

If you’d like to learn more about how Iris can help you find the perfect provider match, contact us!

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6 Ways to Help Patients Become More Comfortable with Telepsych

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6 Ways to Help Patients Become More Comfortable with Telepsych

While most patients will be comfortable utilizing virtual care platforms, some may be hesitant to fully open up to a provider delivering care through a screen. That’s why we’ve created this checklist to help your organization and your providers ensure patients are confident and comfortable receiving care through telepsychiatry.

We hope this checklist helps your patients and providers create an authentic connection in a virtual environment.

By incorporating these tips, your providers will be set up for successful patient sessions that will make patients more comfortable with any virtual communications.

If you’re interested in learning more about how your organization can partner with Iris Telehealth to build out an effective, long-term telepsychiatry program that will increase patient and provider satisfaction, contact us today.

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How Spectrum Healthcare & Iris Partner for Arizona

How Spectrum Healthcare & Iris Partner for Arizona

Since May 2017, Iris Telehealth has provided Arizona-based Spectrum Healthcare Group with telepsychiatry services and 24/7 support to meet patient needs at their four clinic locations.

Background

Spectrum Healthcare Group provides high-quality, whole health services to the communities of Yavapai County just north of Phoenix, AZ. Spectrum has four clinics that provide same-day services for primary care, behavioral health, pediatrics, and substance abuse treatment. Spectrum’s philosophy is to care for the patient above all else, and their mission is to provide the best care for the people who walk through their clinic doors.

Challenges

Spectrum’s main behavioral health challenge was finding qualified, productive providers who would fit in well with their onsite team. Spectrum values culture among staff, so they wanted to
ensure additional providers served as an extension of their team. This clinic sees many patients ranging from those with serious mental illnesses to patients with milder cases. Typically, onsite providers prioritized the more urgent cases, but the clinic wanted to provide care for all their patients and minimize referring people to other clinics due to their shortage of providers. Additionally, Spectrum wanted to reduce the prescription of Benzodiazepines for their patients.

Solution

Having worked with telepsychiatry partners in the past, Spectrum did not have reservations about partnering with Iris Telehealth. Because of Iris’ rigorous screening process during psychiatric hiring, Spectrum knew the providers would be of top quality and could see patients rapidly while maintaining accuracy. Additionally, Iris Telehealth’s 24/7 support team ensures all systems are always functioning properly. Lastly, to tackle the Benzodiazepine prescription challenge, their Iris clinician joined Spectrum and pitched ideas to minimize the prescribing of this drug.

Results

With the addition of their Iris clinician, Spectrum’s team now operates more smoothly. She was a good culture fit with the onsite staff, and their resulting comradery boosted Spectrum’s overall workflow. Their Iris clinician helped them operate better and prescribe more appropriate medications. More patients were seen, Iris guaranteed proper maintenance of their telehealth technology, and the clinic was able to provide some of the best psychiatric care in the area.

Spectrum Healthcare was able to add top-quality behavioral health providers to their team, guarantee functioning telepsychiatry systems, and decrease the prescription of Benzodiazepines to their patients through their partnership with Iris Telehealth.

You can download this case study to share and reference here!

To learn more about Spectrum Healthcare Group, you can visit their website here. If you’d like learn more about collaborating with Iris to improve access to mental healthcare in your community, let us know in the form below!

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Hathaway-Sycamores Teams With Telepsychiatry Provider

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Hathaway-Sycamores Teams With Telepsychiatry Provider

The shortage of mental health providers across the country — especially for children and adolescents — is well documented. While there are a variety of proposals that may increase access to behavioral healthcare providers, many of these proposals don’t address the geographical imbalance of child psychiatrists in the workforce; some 70% of U.S. counties have no child psychiatrists. This means that many families still face months-long wait times for new appointments and substantial travel barriers to see a provider in person.

To address this issue, organizations across the U.S. are partnering with telepsychiatry companies to improve access to mental healthcare in their communities, providing care to those who need it most.

Hathaway-Sycamores teams with telepsychiatry provider to serve at-risk kids

Hathaway-Sycamores Child and Family Services — a CMHC with a mission to cultivate hope and resilience to enrich the well-being of children, adults, families, and communities — is one of many organizations that was challenged to continue providing behavioral healthcare despite a shortage of pediatric psychiatrists. With the pandemic and the introduction of social-distancing requirements, telepsychiatry was a valuable tool to ensure that they could still provide access to mental healthcare to their LA-based patient population. Their long-standing partnership with Iris Telehealth enabled Hathaway-Sycamores to adapt and scale their provision of mental health services.

A key benefit? Under a telehealth model, cancellation and no-show rates for appointments have declined from about 25% to about 15%.

A safe, virtual space can be the bridge that makes quality healthcare — behavioral or otherwise — accessible to underserved communities. For the portion of patient populations that can be safely treated remotely, telepsychiatry is here to stay.

To learn more about the partnership between Hathaway-Sycamores and Iris, you can find the original article here. To learn more about Hathaway-Sycamores, you can visit their website here. And of course, if you’re interested in learning more about how Iris Telehealth can partner with your organization to increase access to mental health services in your community, feel free to contact us in the form below!

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Telepsychiatry: Long-Distance Doctoring

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Telepsychiatry: Long-Distance Doctoring

Finding high quality psychiatrists and behavioral healthcare providers can be a challenge. Shiawassee Health & Wellness successfully navigated that challenge and hired a new, full-time psychiatrist, but with a twist: he lives in Iowa City, Iowa.

New telepsychiatry services give residents better access to mental health care

Shiawassee County is federally designated as a health professional shortage area (HPSA), where primary and dental care providers — let alone mental health care providers — can be difficult to access. SHW (formerly known as Shiawassee County Community Mental Health Authority) is the county’s designated Community Mental Health Services Program, with the responsibility for serving the specialty behavioral healthcare needs of county residents. The patient population includes adults and children with developmental disabilities, adults with serious mental illness, and children with serious emotional disturbances.

In order to address the needs of their patient population, the nonprofit health organization introduced telepsychiatry by partnering with Iris Telehealth. Telepsychiatry services from companies like Iris enable medical facilities like SHW to hire high quality psychiatric providers who might not be willing to move to areas where facilities are located while reducing the transportation barrier many patients face. SHW and Iris share a vision of expanding telehealth to smaller communities to provide underserved communities with access to the best behavioral healthcare specialists.

To learn more about the partnership between Iris Telehealth and SHW, read the full article here.

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