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Lyra Health provides personalized, effective, and convenient mental healthcare services through self-help resources, therapy sessions, and evidence-based treatments grounded in science.
Ratings
Ease of Use
Best For
Key Differentiator
Price
Free Trial
PROS
- Lyra Health only works with providers who use evidence-based treatments and clinically-validated assessments to measure mental health improvement.
- Lyra Health takes a personalized approach to mental healthcare, ensuring that every member has access to self-help resources, coaches, and therapists, whenever they need them.
- Lyra Health offers a range of treatment options grounded in science, based on your needs — whether that’s preventative care, dealing with day-to-day stressors, or dealing with something much more serious like suicidal tendencies.
CONS
- You cannot access Lyra Health unless your employer has paid for it.
- Once you’ve used up your allotted number of sessions, you will have to either pay out of pocket, which can get expensive, or use your insurance to pay for it.
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Lyra Health offers personalized mental healthcare services online or in-person for the full spectrum of mental health issues, including but not limited to stress, anxiety, depression, relationship problems, and addiction. The platform can be used by adults, teens, children over the age of 2, couples, and families.
Upon signing up, every member will have to answer a few questions about themselves and their mental health concerns and goals. Based on the answers, a personalized care plan is created. The care plan may include one or more of the following:
- Research-based self-care resources such as guided meditations, mindfulness exercises, and how-to videos to support overall mental well-being.
- A guided self-care video session with a mental health coach to understand your goals. Based on the session, the coach will craft a personalized 6-week digital care plan with activities and exercises to help you achieve your goals. The coach will also be available via text to help you stay on track, give feedback, and answer any questions you might have.
- 1:1 regularly scheduled video/text sessions with ICF-accredited mental health coaches.
- Weekly therapy sessions that focus on evidence-based techniques such as CBT.
What we like about Lyra Health is how they measure progress through clinically-validated assessments such as the PHQ-9, which measures the severity of depression in a patient, and the GAD-7, which is used to screen patients for anxiety disorders. Using tests like these allows them to track clinical improvement accurately and provide the right level of care.
While Lyra Health does not offer outpatient care, they have a concierge service that provides advanced care coordination by evaluating facilities and programs that provide evidence-based care, checking for bed availability in rehab centers, and supporting patients and dependants in whatever way possible.
They also provide work-life services beyond mental health in the form of free legal, financial, and ID theft consultations and support to fill up legal forms and file taxes. They also offer referrals and phone and online consultations for dependants.
I primarily use Lyra for its resource library. I find the articles and workbooks particularly helpful. While I haven’t used the coaching feature yet, I have explored the guided prompts to determine what type of expert might be the best match for me.
I use Lyra on an as-needed basis, typically a couple of times per month, when I want to learn about wellness or do some journaling. I find the app more convenient than the website.
Lyra has a simple and intuitive user interface that is easy to navigate. It provides multiple ways to connect with a care provider, including calling a dedicated care navigator or using a guided assessment to get matched with an expert. The app and website offer a consistent experience, making it equally functional across different devices.
Our organization purchased Lyra about two years ago, and I have been using it since we first gained access. We added it as part of our comprehensive wellness package to provide employees with additional mental health support.
Lyra helps employees find mental health care and offers sessions with a coach or therapist. For those who prefer not to use the 1:1 sessions, the platform also provides a library of mental health resources. This flexibility ensures that employees can engage with the tool in a way that best suits their needs.
Lyra’s content library is not promoted enough—the homepage and menu primarily direct users toward finding expert matches, which can make other resources less visible. The app requires me to sign in every time I close and reopen it, which I understand for privacy reasons, but I wish there were a setting to stay signed in if I choose. Similarly, the website logs users out too quickly.
Lyra stands out because it matches users with qualified mental health professionals, a feature not available on platforms like Headspace. Unlike many wellness apps, Lyra offers 1:1 coaching and therapy sessions.
I also appreciate that Lyra’s website functions just as well as its app, which is not always the case with similar platforms. However, I think the interface could be more visually engaging—compared to Headspace, Lyra’s design feels less inviting.
Consider whether employees are likely to use the 1:1 coaching and therapy sessions, as these services account for a significant portion of Lyra’s cost. If employees are not actively seeking mental health support, the investment may not be worthwhile. If a robust content library is the main priority, other platforms may be a better fit.
I can’t speak to Lyra’s earlier versions, but over the past couple of years, I’ve noticed that they keep their content updated with timely and relevant information. They also offer frequent live sessions with experts, making the platform more engaging.
Lyra is ideal for organizations with employees who are actively seeking access to therapy, counseling, or coaching. While it could benefit anyone, its value depends on whether users are willing to engage with the platform.
Lyra may not be a good fit for organizations that already offer therapy benefits through their health insurance, as it could be redundant. It may also not be ideal for populations that are resistant to therapy or coaching.
Lyra-Health is advertised as a benefit to our employees during orientation when they start work. Lyra-Health is also promoted annually during open enrollment so employees can be reminded of this benefit. When employees are reaching out to our benefits vendor that some therapists don't take our insurance we remind employees that we have a contract with Lyra that you can use an allotted amount of sessions for free and then afterwards pay a nominal fee of $50 thereafter. It was our approach to helping support our employees' well-being.
It's an easy platform for our employees to use. The turnaround time to get a therapist is easy. It has good customer service.
During the pandemic we purchased lyra-health due to the overwhelming demand to provide EAP services to our employees. Working in healthcare many of our employees who are health care workers were selflessly putting patients first hence feeling burnt out themselves. Our own internal EAP services department for our employees had a long waiting list. In order to reduce the waiting time for our employees we purchased this service for our employees to use in lieu of work. We have used this service for 2.5 years.
Not all therapists are Psychologists. They can be more junior in their careers whether it's Mental Health Counselor or Social Work for the more acute mental illnesses.
They have the scale and massive network to meet needs. There are other smaller EAP vendors, but Lyra-Health has scope and depth.
How efficient is the service being provided. I would consider getting a contract based on instead of a flat fee, it could be by utilization. (i.e. how often employees use the service)
Large organizations who need mass coverage of mental health services and perhaps curbing cost of less acute issues
Smaller organizations
You cannot use Lyra Health unless your employer has paid for it.
Zoom, Amgen, eBay, Morgan Stanley, and Genentech
- Self-care resources like guided meditation, skill-building videos, and exercises
- Mental health and behavioral coaching sessions
- Therapy sessions
- Medication management
- Group sessions to support people with addiction issues
- Training and workshops
- Critical incident support
- Legal, financial, identity theft, and dependant care service
Lyra is a stand-alone application that does not integrate with other tools.
Lyra Health is free for employees and their dependents. To find out what it costs you as an employer, you can reach out to Lyra Health’s sales team, and they will help you out with a custom quote.
Lyra Health is best suited for companies that are looking for a comprehensive EAP backed by clinically-validated results.
To get started with Lyrahealth, members will have to create a free account. You can then immediately begin accessing their mental wellness content and exercises. If you want to meet with a provider, you can contact their team and answer a few questions about how you're feeling, what you're looking for, etc. Based on your answers, they will recommend different care options, resources, and tools that you can get started with right away.
If you have any queries, you can check out Lyra Health's FAQ page. Details about your specific EAP and what services it covers are accessible once you log in to your member account. For more information, you can reach out to Lyra Health's customer support team via live chat, email, or phone, 24 hours a day.
Lyra Health's co-founder and CEO, David Ebersman, believes that the biggest hurdle to mental healthcare isn't treatment, it's access. And thus, he left his job as Facebook's CFO in 2014 and created Lyra - a platform that made mental healthcare accessible, personalized, and effective.
Since its inception in 2014, Lyra Health has partnered with over 75 companies, including well-known brands like Pinterest and Starbucks, to offer comprehensive mental healthcare to their employees. They've also received accolades like the Forbes Best Product Healthcare Award 2020 and made it to Fast Company's list of the World's Most Innovative Companies 2020.
Company HQ
Burlingame, California, United States
Number of Employees
1200+
Year Founded
2015
Amount Raised
Lyra Health has raised around $910 million in funding over 8 rounds from investors like Salesforce Ventures, Coatue, and Emerson Collective. Their latest was a Series F round in January 2022.
