PsychHelp: Maroochydore mental health start-up on the rise

The shift to more mobile medical care is spurring rapid growth for a Maroochydore mental health start-up. Read more about the growing business here:

Some of the Sunshine Coast-based PsychHelp team.

Maroochydore-based company PsychHelp’s rapid growth since telehealth was streamlined is set to continue after the vital service was made permanent.

Clinical Psychologist Dr Mary Gregory founded PsychHelp – an online platform which enables clients to see psychologists remotely for appointments in real-time via video call or phone – in 2016.

She created the start-up with the aim of providing more accessible psychology services to people in rural, remote, and metro locations.

By the end of its first year in operation in 2019, PsychHelp had a team of three psychologists and about 40 clients.

Following the national rollout of telehealth last year in response to Covid-19 the company experienced a 1100 per cent increase in referrals since January and now boasted more than 1000 clients and 22 psychologists from across the country.

Dr Gregory said the Federal Government’s recent move to make telehealth permanent under its $308.6m primary care investment package would allow her to continue to expand her business.

“This is really exciting because it makes something that was working really well which is telehealth permanent, so now we have security in this area,” Dr Gregory says.

“Our growth has been large over the last few years and it means we can keep growing to account for the demand for telehealth psychology services.”

Some of the Sunshine Coast-based PsychHelp team.

Last financial year PsychHelp recorded an increase of more than 500 per cent in annual revenue from the year before.

Next year the start-up has forecast their total annual earnings to be at least double the current year’s.

By around the same time they’re also expected to have more than 3000 clients on their platform based on the last four months of referrals.

Dr Gregory said working in Australia as a clinical psychologist for the past 14 years had allowed her to see first-hand the need for digital mental health services particularly in rural and remote areas which is where most of her clients on PsychHelp are based.

“I’d previously worked in public health and I knew there was a demand for these services,” Dr Gregory said.

“I also had clients who had either moved remotely or have needed to come into a city for their mental health care.

“My idea in 2016 was to start reaching out to those people and then the funding for the rural and remote item codes through, Medicare, NDIS and Work Cover have got on board and now telehealth has been made permanent.

“It has been a snowball effect of people realising how important mental health care is, how easy it is to access telehealth and more organisations coming on board.”

In November PsychHelp was awarded an $8400 grant under the Queensland Government’s Big Plans for Small Business initiative which will go towards enhancing cybersecurity on the platform.

The start-up will also be partaking in healthtech incubator SunRamp’s accelerator program in February in the Sunshine Coast with the goal of scaling up their platform and further developing their services.

PsychHelp at a glance

Category: Telehealth psychology

Business registration date: 2016

Suburb: Maroochydore

How many employees: Over 20

Good to know:

• Provides clients with one-on-one mental health support with a professional psychologist in real-time via video call or phone
• Clients can choose from over 20 psychologists specialising in different areas to meet their needs
• Sessions can be conducted from any location with phone or internet service

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