My 5 key learnings as a CEO in mental health

Terri Storey, Snapclarity’s CEO & Co-Founder

I started my career as a clinical manager providing mental health services for youth, and my mission soon became fixing our broken mental healthcare system.

That hasn’t stopped.

I went on to open bricks and mortar mental health centres, and then started to think about how we could offer our model to more people and make the experience even better. By thoroughly understanding the patient’s journey, we could create faster and easier access to the right care.

That’s when I co-founded Snapclarity and became a CEO of a tech start-up with the vision to change the way mental health is accessed, delivered and experienced so that people are empowered to navigate their wellness, and improve their own health.

5 things I’ve learned along the way:

1. We need to be honest about mental health in tech. The diversity and creativity in high tech combined with the sheer pressure, results in increased mental health challenges. Tech leaders, like myself, need to continue to break the stigma.
2. Hire senior leaders who can be vulnerable. Build a C-suite whose members are willing to open up about mental health and share their own stories. This is key to creating a culture of mental health (it starts from the top).
3. The health insurance experience doesn’t match your investment or employees’ expectations. The ROI on insurance and benefits is not there. Plan costs go up each year by an average of 14% and drug costs for mental health disorders are the fastest growing. At the same time, short-term disability and long-term disability claims due to mental health are increasing. There is also a disconnect between how employees want to experience their health benefits and what current plans offer. Technology will need to play a significant role in fixing this and improving the employee experience.
4. The lack of coverage for quality mental health is a collective failure to tackle everyday mental health. Mental health in the workplace is a growing problem that costs companies significant time, money and productivity. Current benefit plans (even if they are more flexible) do not offer enough coverage towards improving mental health, including therapy and maintenance plans to remain functional. Employees need a real solution that leverages insurance coverage by using technology to make mental health more accessible and affordable.
5. Companies are in the best position to help drive this change — joint ownership is essential. Whether you like it or not, organizations are in the business of healthcare. Most organizations are spending on the health of their employees. Now it’s time to optimize that spending for better mental healthcare.

Terri Storey is the CEO and Co-Founder of Snapclarity, a technology start-up that is revolutionizing the workplace mental healthcare experience.