App Provides Free Access to Virtual Mental and Physical Health Services for Education Professionals

As California schools reopen both virtually and in-person, teachers and school employees are facing challenges unlike any they’ve faced before. With this in mind, Self-Insured Schools of California (SISC), which runs the healthcare benefits for more than 400 public school districts across California, has partnered with Vida Health to provide best-in-class mental and physical virtual care to more than 250,000 members. The program allows employees of SISC school districts and their adult dependents access to therapy, health coaches, personal trainers, dietitians, diabetes educators and more, all at no cost to them.

After an initial launch in April, Vida is already serving thousands of SISC members across a range of programs focusing on mental health, weight loss, sleep, exercise, nutrition, diabetes, and diabetes prevention.

Recognizing that mental and physical health challenges tend to go hand-in-hand, Vida’s mental and physical health programs integrate seamlessly for conditions such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension through a product that was designed from the ground up to treat multiple conditions that may occur simultaneously in an individual or across any population.

“Education is a difficult job under the best of circumstances,” said SISC’s Health Benefits Coordinator Nicole Henry. “Now, starting a new school year under a global pandemic, all of our members, whether they’re bus drivers, teachers, food service workers, custodians or administrators, are facing challenges they’ve never had to deal with before. Unfortunately, these extra stressors can lead to serious health concerns. With this in mind we’ve launched some meaningful new benefit programs for in 2020, including our partnership with Vida, that we believe will have big impacts on our member’s lives.”

A new peer-reviewed study found that Vida’s app-based, therapist-driven Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) program shows long-term reductions in anxiety and depression. The study, featured in JMIR, found that within six months, patients experienced average reductions in depression and anxiety of more than 40% and sustained improvements through nine months. In just a few short months, Vida’s best-in-class mental health program is already paying dividends for SISC members. One SISC member who allowed us to share her story saw a 64% reduction in depression scores and a 77% reduction in anxiety scores in just four weeks of working with a Vida therapist.

This partnership not only helps public school employees get immediate virtual mental and physical care, it also helps save money for hundreds of public school districts across the state. Health benefits are the second largest expense for most school districts. SISC’s focus on providing leading-edge, preventive healthcare solutions like Vida Health keeps millions of dollars in the classroom that would have otherwise been paid out in premiums.