How One Mental Health Practice Transformed Care with Voice Technology

“We just didn’t have time to keep chasing patients.”

That’s how Andrea Piazza, Founder and Licensed Mental Health Counselor at Dreavita, described a growing pain shared by countless behavioral health clinics across the country.

Running a mental health practice is never just about managing caseloads. Businesses must balance care with compliance as well as the very real financial pressures that come with keeping the lights on and your clinicians supported. According to one estimate, total start-up costs for launching a therapy practice can reach almost $180,000 – not including ongoing monthly expenses like rent and staff salaries.

For Dreavita, a virtual-first practice focused on counseling and coaching, getting patients to complete the PHQ-9 depression screening was creating a real drain of staff’s time and practice revenue.

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The PHQ-9 helps providers assess the severity of depression and determine the right level of care for each patient. But in Dreavita’s workflow – like many others – it relied on patients to complete it themselves before or after a visit. And far too often, that simply didn’t happen.

“Our patient compliance for completing the PHQ-9 was just 30%. We had to follow up manually, which meant our care coordinators were spending around 20 minutes per patient just chasing paperwork,” Andrea said.

That time added up fast. Even when follow-ups helped slightly, a large portion of patients were still being assessed manually during appointments – cutting into already limited face-to-face time. For Andrea and her team, addressing this bottleneck was a top priority. “We wanted to reduce the friction for patients, but also make sure our providers had more time for actual care,” she explained.

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Technology that listens - literally

That’s when Dreavita began exploring alternatives, and discovered Kintsugi’s voice biomarker technology – a solution that would change their workflow, and their practice, in meaningful ways.

Instead of relying on patients to fill out a questionnaire, Kintsugi’s technology integrates directly into virtual care platforms like Zoom and EHR systems like Epic. The tool listens passively during sessions, using just a brief voice sample to screen for signs of depression or anxiety – and returns a real-time analysis to the provider.

For Dreavita, that meant no more chasing forms. No more manually scoring assessments during valuable session time. And no more risk of patients falling through the cracks because of incomplete paperwork.  “It was seamless,” Andrea said. “The integration didn’t disrupt our existing systems, and the training took less than 20 minutes. Our clinicians were able to use it right away – and they loved it.”

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Results that speak for themselves

Within the first six weeks of implementation, 96% of Dreavita patients were screened with Kintsugi’s tool – up from just 30% using the PHQ-9. Dreavita’s clinicians agreed with Kintsugi’s assessment 100% of the time, giving them confidence in the tool’s accuracy.

Patients told the practice that they felt more engaged and supported. Many expressed a preference for the ease and non-invasiveness of voice-based screening over traditional questionnaires.

“It’s really improved the patient experience.  It gives us better and more accurate data about our patients - all without disrupting the flow of their care sessions,”

Andrea Piazza, Founder & Owner of Dreavita, Licensed Mental Health Counselor

The practice was also able to gain back valuable time for its clinicians and care coordinators since it essentially eliminated the need for manual follow-ups and in-session assessments.

They calculated that Kintsugi enabled them to save over 1,900 minutes per 100 patients. This would be the equivalent of $5,412 in new monthly revenue opportunities thanks to the regained time.

A practical solution for all providers

The challenges Dreavita faced – and the results they saw – are anything but unique. Providers of all sizes struggle with the same question: How can we scale care and improve access – without burning out our teams or cutting corners?

What Dreavita’s story shows is that small operational challenges – like screening inefficiencies – can have an unexpectedly huge impact on your finances and clinical capacity. But when addressed thoughtfully, those same hurdles can be turned into opportunities for impact.

If you’re a behavioral health clinician or administrator, Andrea’s story probably sounds familiar. Many providers have had to deal with the mountains of paperwork and the baked-in inefficiencies of having to follow decades-old protocols.

At Kintsugi, we believe that better mental health care starts with better tools. That’s why our technology supports both the provider and the patient, and creates more space for what really matters: the human connection.

Dreavita’s experience shows that even small changes to care workflows can have an outsized impact on your bottom line.

If you're exploring new ways to optimize your care workflows or increase mental health screening rates in your practice, get in touch with us. We’d be happy to share more about how Kintsugi Voice is helping teams like yours scale care with confidence.