How Employers Are Integrating Care Across Urgent, Mental Health, and Primary Care

A Complex Landscape: Fragmentation Is Still Common

When it comes to employee healthcare benefits, fragmentation is still the norm. Many employers work with a patchwork of vendors to address urgent care, mental health, primary care, chronic condition management, and more. While this “point solution” approach can provide specialized services, it often results in:

• Disconnected experiences for employees
• Siloed data that’s difficult to analyze
• Redundant costs across overlapping vendors

In fact, 41% of employers feel they have too many solutions, and only about 10% of employees use them regularly. This low engagement can diminish ROI and frustrate HR teams trying to boost utilization.

Three Common Integration Approaches

1. Relying on Health Plans to Integrate
   Some employers assume their medical carrier will coordinate care across services. But many traditional plans lack the tech infrastructure and proactive care models to create true integration. As a result, mental health and primary care often operate in silos, with little coordination.
2. Building Internal Navigation Teams
   Larger employers may invest in internal navigation or concierge teams to guide employees across their benefits. While this adds value, it’s not always scalable and requires significant investment and oversight.
3. Bundling Through Aggregators
   Some vendors now act as aggregators, bundling various point solutions under one umbrella. While this reduces vendor sprawl, it is important to ensure solutions are built to work together and share data natively.

The Case for Integrated Virtual Care

This is where a virtual care provider with integrated services across primary care, mental health, and urgent care delivers strategic value. The benefits include:

• A single entry point for care across services
• Shared clinical teams and care histories, leading to better continuity
• Stronger data insights, enabling smarter benefits decisions
• High employee engagement, especially when care is easy, fast, and $0

By working with a virtual care or telehealth solutions partner that delivers a cohesive experience across care types, employers can:

• Improve outcomes
• Increase utilization
• Support employee wellness more effectively
• Reduce unnecessary costs (e.g., ER visits, absenteeism, delayed care)

Performance Matters: Look for Virtual Care with Outcomes

Leading virtual care providers now back their services with performance guarantees, such as ROI commitments or visit diversion metrics. This allows employers to measure the true impact on cost containment and employee health.

Real-World Example: Integrated Care in Action

Consider a mid-sized employer that implemented integrated virtual care — combining urgent, primary, and mental health support: they saw 95% of visits diverted from costly settings like ERs or urgent care clinics saving them 200k in one year.

That’s a 405% ROI — $5.05 saved for every $1 spent.

If your benefits strategy still treats urgent, primary, and mental health as separate conversations, it may be time to rethink. The best care happens when services are coordinated, connected, and convenient.

Virtual care providers like First Stop Health that offer truly integrated, high-performing solutions are no longer “nice-to-have.” They’re essential partners in building smarter.

Frequently Asked Questions 

What’s the difference between coordinated care and integrated care?
While coordinated care involves different providers or services working together (often through referrals or shared records), integrated care refers to services delivered through a unified system, often with shared clinical teams, centralized data, and a single point of access. Integration removes friction, while coordination still relies on fragmented systems.

Are mental health services more effective when integrated with primary care?
Research shows that models where mental health is integrated into primary care lead to better outcomes and have been shown in studies to reduce overall healthcare costs.

What are the main causes of low virtual care utilization?
Common reasons include:

• Too many point solutions causing confusion
• Lack of employee awareness or understanding
• Poor user experience (e.g., hard-to-navigate platforms)
• High out-of-pocket costs
  An integrated virtual care provider with $0 visits, mobile-first access, and clear communication often sees higher engagement and satisfaction.

How do performance guarantees work in virtual care contracts?
Performance guarantees typically involve measurable outcomes, such as:

• ROI thresholds (e.g., savings per $1 spent)
• Visit diversion targets (e.g., % of ER/urgent visits avoided)
• Engagement or utilization benchmarks
  These guarantees help employers ensure that their virtual care provider delivers on both cost containment and employee benefits goals.

What does “carrier-agnostic” mean when selecting a virtual care solution?
Carrier-agnostic solutions work independently of your health insurance plan. This means they can be implemented anytime, integrated with existing benefits, and won’t be disrupted by annual carrier changes — giving HR teams greater flexibility and control.

How can I evaluate whether our current benefits model is too fragmented?
Start by asking:

• How many vendors are involved in your benefits ecosystem?
• Are services siloed or difficult for employees to navigate?
• Can you easily track utilization and outcomes across services?
  If the answer to any of these is "no," an integrated telehealth provider may be a valuable solution.

• Virtual Primary Care 
• Virtual Mental Health 
• Virtual Wellness Specialist Care 
• Virtual Urgent Care