Teladoc responds to Blue Orca’s report on BetterHelp’s AI ‘therapy’ (updated)

February 25, 2025 | by | 2 Comments

Teladoc formally responds to the Blue Orca Capital research report [TTA 25 Feb]. Their letter (PDF) via its legal counsel (King & Spalding) yesterday refutes Blue Orca’s allegations in a report on their stock (TDOC) that a “meaningful” number of BetterHelp patients are receiving AI therapy from therapists in the form of text/asynchronous and live messages, calling them “vague and unsubstantiated”.

The policy stated by Teladoc, quoted directly from this letter (Editor’s notes):

  • BetterHelp expressly prohibits therapists from disclosing any member personal or health information to third-party AI. (Editor’s emphasis)
  • BetterHelp has a Trust and Safety team dedicated to the detection and prevention of non-compliant use of AI and, if anything, has structured its platform (and its incentives to therapists) to promote live video calls over asynchronous messaging. (Another point made by Blue Orca)
  • BetterHelp’s Privacy Policy provides further disclosures to members concerning its AI practices. (The Privacy Policy is at the end of Section 1 Data Collection and Processing, and is specific as to AI being used for ‘manual, repetitive tasks’ in processing and to “help therapists manage and document sessions more effectively”.)

Readers will note that this Editor called Blue Orca’s statements in its report about AI therapy “allegations”. I also noted that Blue Orca was a short seller. I later clarified what a ‘short seller’ is and that short sellers profit when the stock goes down. Short sellers are also prohibited by securities law from spreading false information about a stock for the purposes of profiting from its decline (Rule 10b-5 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.)

The Teladoc counsel letter to Blue Orca Capital addresses other allegations in the Blue Orca report about their changes in reporting practices in FY 2022 that supposedly inflated Teladoc’s profitability. These are outside the scope of both articles and will not be commented on here.

Disclosure: Teladoc reached out to this Editor, supplying information about their response including the King & Spalding letter.

This Editor hopes, and would like to see confirmation, that any BetterHelp therapist using third-party AI to respond to patients in providing direct therapy, versus Teladoc/BetterHelp supplied management tools, customer service information, or security tools, is disciplined and released. The integrity, privacy, and security of a telementalhealth platform is essential to its operation and the confidence of its patients–and should be publicly confirmed.

Update: In response to this article, a spokesperson from Teladoc Health further elaborated:

“To be clear, BetterHelp expressly prohibits therapists from disclosing any member personal or health information to third-party AI. BetterHelp has clear, rapid processes for members to report negative experiences, switch therapists, and cancel memberships, when requested. If a therapist is found to be practicing in an unethical manner, they are investigated and terminated from the platform. The overwhelming majority of members stay with their matched therapist, even though they are free to switch their therapist at any time.” 

Optum rumored on the digital health acquisition hunt again with AbleTo virtual behavioral health

April 29, 2020 | by

Optum, the part of UnitedHealthGroup that runs engagement, technology, and financial services for UHG, is in advanced negotiations to acquire AbleTo, a New York City-based behavioral health and virtual therapy provider, according to CNBC. Unusually, there is also a number attached: $470 million, about 10 times their forward revenue.

AbleTo is already well acquainted with Optum, as their Ventures arm provided financing in January 2019 in a corporate round. Over the past 12 years, the company has raised close to $47 million through a Series D. Interestingly, one of the early investors was Aetna, pre-CVS. Crunchbase

Optum of late has been on an acquisition tear, with first dialysis provider DaVita for $5 billion and then telehealth/remote patient monitoring company Vivify Health for an undisclosed but certainly far less amount. AbleTo is attractive not only in the context of telehealth (at last the belle of the ball!) but also for the underserved behavioral health market. Confirmation of its attractiveness? A fresh crop of competitors such as Quartet Health, Lyra, and ‘traditional’ telemedicine providers such as Doctor on Demand.

AbleTo was founded by Michael Laskoff, at one time quite the ‘face’ in the NYC digital health scene, who went on some years back to found another behavioral health company, Annum Health, focusing on alcohol addiction. AbleTo is one of the pioneers of virtual therapy, both telephonic and audio/video, using care teams of coaches and LCSWs to provide short-term cognitive therapy sessions. It is certainly an underserved market with over 50 percent of those researched citing cost and stigma to not obtain treatments, with about 2/3rds surprisingly under age 50, but not surprisingly about half with one or more chronic conditions. Most of its business is with payers and self-funded companies, although it still offers individual therapy plans.   Mobihealthnews