Paul Kim, founder and chief executive of behavioral health provider Sensible Care, knows firsthand how difficult it can be for military veterans to access mental health care.
Kim had experienced symptoms of PTSD after serving in the Army for more than a decade. He enlisted after 9/11 and was deployed to Iraq in 2004.
Kim served with the 506th Infantry Regiment, a combat unit that saw intense fighting during the Iraq War. The lasting psychological toll on soldiers from the regiment’s 1st Battalion was later examined in the PBS documentary “The Wounded Platoon.”
“It’s really hard not to come out of that experience with trauma and anxiety,” Kim told the Business Journal. “I really felt like I needed some help.”
Kim said that he struggled finding a provider who would accept his military insurance or would have to wait months on end to get an appointment.
“I realized this experience is probably not unique to me,” Kim said.
He spent the next 10 years learning about the behavioral health industry before starting Sensible Care in 2017 with Dr. Paul Chung, who serves as chief medical officer.
Irvine-based Sensible Care started as a brick-and-mortar psychiatry practice and has grown to a full-service platform that connects clients with close to 300 licensed therapists and psychiatrists. Kim expects to double its network to 400 clinicians by the end of the year.
In 2022, the company raised a $13 million Series A round from Volition Capital. Proceeds from the round went toward rewriting its software platform and paying off debt.
There are no plans at this time to raise additional capital, according to Kim.
Insulating Providers from the Claims Process
Sensible Care delivers the majority of its care via telehealth with some in-person clinical services.
Kim said that the company differentiates itself from other behavioral health providers by accepting most major insurances, including Anthem Blue Cross, Aetna, Cigna, Optum and Tricare, a military health benefits program. Currently, it doesn’t accept Medicare or Medicaid.
When Kim and Chung co-founded Sensible Care, they made it a priority for all providers to accept major insurance plans by taking on the administrative burden and financial risk of the claims process.
“Instead of fighting with insurance, they’re going to be treating patients,” Kim said.
Sensible Care hires providers as W-2 employees and pay them consistent paychecks, whether they see clients or not.
Kim said it was “massive risk” for them that ended up paying off, establishing a good reputation amongst providers.
“There’s no secret to it—just one contract and one payout at a time, then maintaining good relationships by delivering good outcome,” he said. “It took nine years, but we cover 90% of the population in California.”
Built Software Platform from the Ground Up
In the beginning, Sensible Care was using one platform for human resources, one for patients and a separate platform for invoicing.
“What happened was we were having to hire an army of people sitting in the middle of all these platforms,” Kim said.
Being a programmer, Kim decided to write a software platform from the ground up to handle scheduling, billing electronic health records and act as a patient portal all in one system.
The company ran into financial difficulties during COVID-19 when practices were performing less sessions and had to apply for an economic injury disaster loan (EIDL) through the U.S. Small Business Administration.
Despite the challenges, Kim said the company avoided layoffs and repaid the loan within a year.
Since then, Sensible Care has rebounded, growing more than 50% year over year, according to Kim.
Current goals include expanding in states with large military populations, including Texas, Florida and Virginia, Kim said.
Last week, the company announced the upcoming launch of a new offering called SC Now that can connect patients with licensed mental health providers in 20 minutes, rather than waiting days or weeks for an appointment.
The company said it plans to roll out SC Now through a phased launch to monitor patient demand and provider capacity before a broader launch.
