Lifestance: A mental health rollup headed for a breakdown

If the overall sentiment behind the bullet points are true, WOW.<p>From what I can tell - this is a digital pill-mill targeting some of the most vulnerable members of modern society.<p>Pardon my french here, but how the fuck was this able to IPO? And more than that, what firms actually bought into this?<p>EDIT: not every facet of the Health&#x2F;Wellness&#x2F;Medical industry needs to be subject to Wall Street&#x27;s rules. Why don&#x27;t people understand that by now?

Been using Lifestance for my therapist&#x2F;psychiatrist since it was one of the few places that took Medicaid.<p>Calling it a digital pill-mill seems inaccurate based on my experiences, but maybe other providers within the system are shadier than the ones I&#x27;ve interacted with.<p>My main complaint is that I&#x27;ve met with multiple therapists and none of them are really academic like I want my therapists to be. Good vibes does not work for me, show me some data.

From the claims, it appears Lifestance charged therapists to be part of the network but were treated as employees, resulting in some therapists owing more than they made. Ouch!<p>I wonder why they didn&#x27;t operate as a lead gen agency to avoid the employment issues. Maybe this is how they were able to IPO. It made it seem like they had real assets with a network of on staff therapists and nurses.

This company bought out my local psychiatry group and ran it into the ground. What once was a fairly personal experience grew into cold, emotionless online pill pushing.<p>I could literally ask for anything I wanted and would get it. It didn’t feel right at all. I no longer do business with them but am warning people to stay away.

&gt; “They’re not able to collect, and then they don’t pay you because they would have paid you based on the appointment that you conducted. Right? But because they were not able to collect because they were so inefficient, you end up not getting paid.”<p>I wonder if this is legally wage theft? Based on my layman&#x27;s quick reading I think yes in California, but no federally unless it brings you below minimum wage. Imagine if you&#x27;re a factory worker, and the warehouse storing all the widgets burns down. So they tell you that they&#x27;re retroactively not paying you for last month&#x27;s labor because they lost the product of it, independent of anything you did.

Lifestance bought up the practice I was going to a couple years ago, and I have continued to see the same people. Haven&#x27;t heard any complaints from them, will have to ask at my next appointment I guess

Looks like a trash business but I&#x27;m not so sure it&#x27;s a good short. Extractive, value negative businesses can go on a long time eating up profits from like locusts from real businesses.

I&#x27;m just baffled at how they messed this up. They provide infrastructure for therapists and psychiatrists to source patients. Mental health needs have only accelerated since the pandemic.<p>Laughable is the claim that therapy doesn&#x27;t &quot;scale.&quot; Of course it doesn&#x27;t! The thing that makes it not scale is exactly the thing that people are there for.