Cigna Healthcare has teamed up with mental health company Headspace to offer digital support for its members, the companies announced on Monday.
The partnership, called Headspace for Cigna Healthcare, will become available starting January 1 to more than 7 million people as part of Cigna’s employer behavioral health offerings. Headspace was previously just an in-network provider for coaching and therapy services for Cigna, but this partnership now makes their full suite of services available to Cigna members.
The collaboration will provide Cigna customers with exclusive access to customized content, such as support for stress, burnout and neurodivergence. Headspace will also be able to provide clinical care navigation, referring members to in-network clinicians for higher levels of care if needed.
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In addition, members will have access to Headspace’s digital mental health app, which offers daily meditations, sleepcasts, focus music, workouts, cognitive behavioral therapy-guided programs, tools for reflection and emotional check-ins. They’ll also have access to Ebb, Headspace’s empathetic AI companion that helps patients reflect and sort through their emotions. This is the first time Ebb is being offered through a national health plan.
“Everyone deserves support before stress, anxiety and depression spirals, or burnout sets in – but the real challenge has been creating the right entry points to care,” said Tom Pickett, CEO of Headspace, in a statement. “Together with Cigna, we’re solving that by making mental health support more easily accessible, affordable and part of everyday life. When people take action early, they experience better health outcomes and are less likely to require more intensive, costly interventions down the line. It’s a win for members and for the system.”
Cigna chose Headspace as a partner after an extensive study of mental health vendors, and selected the digital health company because of a “really good cultural fit,” according to Jason Youngblood, senior director of behavioral health at Cigna Healthcare. He noted that Headspace’s apps and programs are clinically validated and the company has over 70 research studies.
“Their willingness to do more than just bolting their app into our system, but really make it kind of a bidirectional referral is why we selected them,” he said in an interview at the Behavioral Health Tech conference in San Diego.
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To track the success of Headspace for Cigna Healthcare, the insurer will measure engagement rates, how much of Headspace’s support members utilize and how long they use that support for, among other metrics.
The launch of this partnership comes as the prevalence of mental health conditions is on the rise, increasing by 20% from 2020 to 2024, according to a recent report from Cigna. In addition, about 30% of workers battle anxiety. By partnering with Headspace, Cigna ultimately aims to increase the number of people who are engaged in preventative mental wellbeing, Youngblood said.
“We really want to push the industry forward to a new place where we are not just focused on reactive care, but really focused on getting people engaged in preventative care, giving them tools and resources that they will love and that they will enjoy using,” he said.
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