Town Hall Recap: How Alma is Helping Clinicians Navigate Change

The world of mental health care is changing fast, and therapists can feel it. Insurance rules are shifting, AI is on the rise, and clients are coming to therapy with new needs and expectations.

At Alma’s recent Community Town Hall, CEO Dr. Harry Ritter acknowledged the unprecedented rate of change and its impact. “Alma was founded because providers were far too alone in trying to navigate mental healthcare. From our earliest days of providing physical places to meet clients in person, so much has changed. We know that these changes bring new and real pressures, and that we all are feeling the impact." Rather than shy away from that reality, the conversation leaned into it, offering clinicians a clearer view of what's happening in the mental health industry and how Alma is responding in order to support its members and their clients.

Keep reading for a summary of the highlights below.

Tracking the shift from access to outcomes

Alma’s Chief Commercial Officer, Kate Mellor, began by sharing a key insight: when it comes to mental health, payers have a new area of focus.

"In 2020, the big focus for payers was to increase access and add more providers to their networks," Mellor explained. That was the result of two developments: demand for teletherapy soared during the pandemic and patients were avoiding non-emergency healthcare and elective procedures, leaving more funds available for mental health. Today, demand is still high, but usage for mental healthcare has proven unpredictable in ways that traditional healthcare often isn’t. While access remains critical, payers are now asking a new question: How do we know therapy is actually helping people get better? And they’re seeking the answer through measurement-based care.

For therapists, this hits close to home. Every provider knows the satisfaction of seeing a client improve, step by step, on their mental health journey. Capturing that progress in a way payers can see, at scale, is much harder. The result is a growing focus on measurement-based care, session frequency reviews, and documentation audits. These tools offer opportunities (like higher reimbursement for demonstrated outcomes) but they can also create challenges if the measures don’t reflect the real, nuanced work of clinical care.

This is where Alma steps in. "We aim to be providers’ representative in conversations with payers," Mellor said. Alma is building tools that share population-level data efficiently, reducing the need for individual audits. The goal: give payers the information they need while easing the burden on clinicians. Alma helps providers navigate these changes, protecting both financial stability and clinical autonomy.

A thoughtful approach to AI

The conversation then turned to artificial intelligence. AI is reshaping countless industries, and mental healthcare is no exception. Payers are using it to track outcomes, clients are expecting more digital tools, and technology is starting to influence how practices run. As AI continues to transform our world, Alma’s goal will remain the same—to safely and responsibly leverage its capabilities in support your work

"AI is best used as a tool that supports you, not a tool that takes away from the work you do," stated Dr. Ritter. AI can be designed to gather the right information, reduce risk, free up clinicians’ time, and help deliver great care to clients.

Dr. Ritter also addressed the significant risks of AI. "When you neglect a thoughtful and safety-first, clinician-led approach, there are real risks," he said, referencing widely publicized concerns about AI chatbots and direct-to-consumer mental health apps. Alma wants to explore where AI can support the human-first relationship, while being responsible about the challenges and limitations.

To ignore AI would be a disservice to both clinicians and clients. Dr. Ritter shared his philosophy on the global shift towards AI in mental healthcare: “If we are passive in the development in AI, we lose the opportunity to advocate for providers and achieve the best outcomes for patients.” By being proactive, thoughtful, and safety-focused, Alma can advocate for providers, test new tools responsibly, and ensure these technologies help you deliver the best outcomes for your clients, without compromising the care that matters most.

Centering clinician voices

One of the most exciting updates came from Dr. Elizabeth Morray, Alma’s VP of Clinical, who shared how the new Clinician Advisory Council is helping shape Alma’s response to the major industry changes covered earlier.

The council actively influences product development and policy rollouts. "The council's input has shaped some very concrete things we've been working on," Dr. Morray said, pointing to changes in how automated assessments are communicated and which product pilots get prioritized.

"We don’t just want to listen… we want you to have a real and visible hand in shaping the platform you use every day," she added. Agendas are built from community feedback, recommendations are shared with executive leadership, and outcomes are communicated transparently.

Building a durable practice

As the session wrapped, the primary takeaways was that, while the industry may shift unpredictably, Alma will continue to act with careful consideration and expert guidance. Every update Alma makes, from platform improvements to policy changes, is designed to help providers in private practice to thrive.

"This business has always been about figuring out what our provider community needs to be successful now and in the future," Dr. Ritter said. In an industry defined by change, that mission isn’t wavering.