Coronavirus pandemic sets up potential breakout moment for virtual mental health care

With the coronavirus pandemic causing unprecedented levels of stress and grief, companies offering virtual mental health care say they’re seeing a massive surge in interest — and are scrambling to meet that demand by introducing new services, accelerating launch timelines, and bringing more staff on board.

Covid-19 could prove to be a breakout moment for these businesses, which had been trying to address the shortage of in-person mental health care by providing virtual coaching, monitoring, and educational content long before the coronavirus outbreak. If the companies can bring in more users and corporate customers now, they might convince them to stick around after the pandemic is over. But that depends on whether the companies —whose mental health offerings have been relatively small in scale up until now — can handle the uptick in demand.

Most of these companies make money by charging employers and health plans to provide mental health services to their