Amid awareness of growing clinician shortages, mental health care demands continue to exceed the national system's capacity. Projections indicate that provider shortfalls will persist at least through 2037, even without the expected increases in demand.

A scalable, cost-effective, and timely intervention is essential to align the needs of health plans, care systems, and individuals seeking support. New research in JMIR Human Factors positions Supportiv’s live-moderated digital peer support model as such a solution, demonstrating its ability to address speed and access to care while directly reducing therapy session costs and easing pressure on clinical providers. The retrospective pre-/post- cohort study evaluated the book-of-business integration of Supportiv’s digital peer support model within an employee assistance program (EAP).

The Model in Context

Key components of the Supportiv intervention include 24/7 instant access to synchronous, precision-matched small group chat peer support sessions with live moderation on hundreds of topics, structured collaborative problem-solving, and AI-driven hyperpersonalized resource links based on expressed need, as well as stepped care triage and crisis routing.

A critical advantage of this model is its 24/7/365 availability, allowing participants to engage precisely at their moment of need. Importantly, 73% of users in the study accessed Supportiv outside of standard business hours (8 AM–5 PM), when traditional clinical care is often unavailable. Even during these off-peak hours, wait times averaged less than one minute, underscoring the system’s ability to provide immediate support without burdening clinical care resources.

Access and Cost Savings: Reduced Therapy Sessions and Shorter Wait Times

One of the study’s key findings is a reduction in clinical service utilization, with members being offered Supportiv digital peer support requiring an average of 2.07 fewer therapy sessions (p < .001) in a five-session EAP model. This finding comes with a large effect size (Cohen’s d = 1.77).

While digital peer support solutions like Supportiv are not intended to replace clinical care, they offer a critical means of triaging lower-acuity cases—reducing costs, minimizing wait times, and ensuring that individuals with more severe needs receive timely access to professional intervention. The immediacy of support also strengthens perceived social connectedness, a well-established factor in long-term mental health outcomes. Beyond individual benefits, care systems stand to gain from lower clinical demand, cost reductions, and the potential to avoid costly penalties associated with excessive wait times for mental health services.

Measurable Outcome Improvements

Engagement with Supportiv’s digital peer support model resulted in significant emotional benefits for participants. On average, users demonstrated reductions in sadness by 57.50%, loneliness by 55.04%, and stress by 56.47% following a peer support chat.

These findings highlight the potential of real-time, moderated digital peer support to provide meaningful relief for individuals experiencing distress. By offering immediate, accessible support, this model not only enhances individual well-being but also helps reduce the burden on traditional mental health services.

Study Methodology

The study matched pre- and post-intervention cohorts using a combination of propensity scoring and adjustment for confounding factors such as age, gender, and particular emotional concerns.

After cohort matching, study authors assessed key variables during the 1 year period before and 1 year period after the introduction of Supportiv peer support as an embedded book of business offering on the EAP’s 5-session model. A paired samples t-test compared the number of therapy sessions utilized by participants pre- and post-digital peer support integration, revealing a mean difference of -2.07 sessions (SD = 1.77, P = <.001).

Addressing Provider Shortages Through Scalable Solutions

Findings from this EAP-integrated study highlight the broader potential of digital peer support in addressing the overwhelming demand for mental health services. Mental health challenges vary in acuity, and not all cases require clinical intervention. In these cases, hyper-accessible subclinical care like Supportiv’s digital peer support offers an immediate cost-effective alternative.

With national therapy wait times averaging six weeks, the study’s finding of an average wait time of less than one minute for Supportiv participants has profound implications for both care-seekers and care systems. By triaging subclinical needs in real time through a low-cost digital intervention, systems can reallocate clinical resources to higher-acuity patients, potentially reducing therapy demand by nearly half – along with the associated financial burden.

Given the severity of the national mental health provider shortage, implementing scalable, research-backed solutions is an urgent priority. While further exploration is always warranted, these findings strongly suggest a mutually beneficial model that enhances both individual well-being and systemic efficiency.

Supportiv partners with behavioral health plans, Employee Assistance Programs, employers, hospitals, and more – offering an immediately deployable solution to this critical public health challenge.

Read the full study here.