Good day, everyone, and welcome to the Talkspace First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. Today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Jeannine Feyen. Please go ahead.

Good evening, and welcome to Talkspace's earnings conference call for the first quarter of 2023. I'm Jeannine Feyen, Director of Communications. I hope you've had the opportunity to access the press release we posted on Talkspace's IR website and the presentation of our earnings results. We'll use this presentation to walk you through today's remarks. Leading today's call are our CEO, Dr. Jon Cohen; and Jennifer Fulk, Chief Financial Officer. Management will offer their prepared remarks, and we'll then take your questions. Certain measures we'll discuss on this call are expressed on a non-GAAP basis and have been adjusted to exclude the impact of one-off items. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures are included in our earnings release and on our website, talkspace.com. I also want to remind you that we will be discussing forward-looking information today, which may include forecasts, targets and other statements regarding our plans, goals, strategic priorities and anticipated financial results. While these statements represent our best current judgment about future results and performance as of today, our actual results are subject to many risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from what we expect. Important factors that may affect our future results are described in our most recent SEC reports and today's earnings press release. For more information, please review our safe harbor disclaimer on Slide 2. Now I will turn it over to Dr. Jon Cohen.

Thanks, Jeannine, and thank you all for joining us today. Before I begin with the highlights of the quarter, I would like to start with a reminder of the importance of our mission to provide access to high quality, affordable mental health care at scale. We are very encouraged by the increasing focus we see every day by multiple constituency groups across the nation on the need for more mental health care access, and we are privileged to continue to be a major player to help improve our country's mental health fitness. As you may know, May is mental health awareness month. To highlight the importance of our society's mental health, Talkspace launched a campaign featuring our own members sharing personal stories of how therapy has helped them and published a comprehensive mental health conditions library with vetted therapist authored articles that is now available to all visitors on our website. Let me now turn to the quarter's highlights. We began the year with a very strong set of results, driven by solid execution across the business, and we made meaningful progress against our 4 strategic priorities. Consolidated revenue grew 11% year-over-year to $33.3 million or 10% versus Q4, driven by a significant acceleration in our payer business, which registered a meaningful increase in sessions driven by higher capture rate, which represents the number of active members as a percentage of covered lives. The increased sessions are driven by multiple factors, including a significant increase in the number of covered lives and increase in awareness that people can access therapy through Talkspace at little or no out-of-pocket costs and an increase in utilization of the service as we continue to make modifications of the product and make it easier for patients to use the service. At the same time, we…

Thank you, Jon, and good evening, everyone. My comments today will be based on first quarter results on a sequential quarter-over-quarter basis. I will cover highlights across our financial and operational progress and then give you more context for Jon's comments on our revised 2023 guidance and breakeven time line. Turning to Slide 5. Total revenue for the first quarter was $33.3 million, a 10% increase over the fourth quarter of 2022. B2B payer revenue increased approximately 39% sequentially to $14.8 million, driven primarily by an acceleration in session volume growth across behavioral health and EAP with sessions growing 34% quarter-over-quarter a few points on the strong revenue growth. As Jon noted, our capture rate was up 26% from prior quarter, demonstrating the exciting progress we made to optimize our marketing efforts across all member acquisitions and to enhance the top of funnel member experience. This is important as it highlights the significant growth opportunity we have in front of us. We also continue expansion in covered lives and saw an increase in sessions per active user, which also contributed to strong revenue performance. And while we typically experienced strong volume acceleration in the first quarter as the start of the new year comes with renewed focus and investment in personal health, we are very pleased by the sustained levels of new members joining Talkspace through April. Last, we have made significant progress in our revenue cycle management processes. We improved success rates of claims, both through important product adjustments to our claim systems, but also through refined processes and collaboration with payers. We recognized a partial impact of these improvements in Q1, but these efforts will be more meaningful in our financial results going forward. Moving to the B2B DTE category. First quarter revenue increased slightly to $8.7 million.…

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our first question from Charles Rhyee with TD Cowen.

You talked about team's stabilization in the DTC segment here. I know your peers talked about kind of stabilizing CAC. Maybe can you talk about what you're seeing there as well? And is this an area potentially if we see stabilization in costs related to customer acquisition that this area, this segment could become a potential for growth to shift back for growth again?

Thanks, Charles. So yes, so we mentioned in the first quarter, the early signs of stabilization through the members paying cash out of pocket. I'll come back though with a longer-term approach towards this category of revenue, which is really optimizing our media spend and our investments to acquire new customers across the entire member base. And so it's not a complete apples-to-apples to a historic approach towards this business, and we don't see it as a separate opportunity for us going forward. Having said that, we are optimizing that spend to ensure we are maximizing the lifetime value and the value to Talkspace. So to the extent that we're able to bring in a further proportion of cash, people paying out of pocket for their therapy, we will certainly optimize those channels and those investments. Our view is we see the biggest market potential in the mental health care space being through further accessibility and affordability as more and more people are paying cash out of pocket, and that's why we -- as they're paying through getting coverage through either their employers or their insurance benefits. And so it's why we're emphasizing and we're so excited by the growth in members leveraging those benefits in the first quarter and actually for the last several quarters.

Great. That's helpful. And Jon, I think you mentioned, right, the big opportunity in terms of number of lives coming on. And I guess I want to tie that in here because when I look at the guidance here, obviously a real positive raise in the guidance, but if I look at it, you're not really calling for much sequential improvement in revenue. And I think if you just annualize the first quarter here, we're kind of right in the middle of the range. Anything to think about in terms of what to expect in the back half -- or sorry, as we move through the rest of this year that might cause -- because it sounds like, Jon, your point is the potential for more members to come on, which I would imagine would lead to sequential improvements in revenue?

Sure. So thanks. So first off, yes, we're looking at this relatively conservatively as we remember, only through the first quarter of the year. There's no question that we will be adding significant more lives in the subsequent quarters as we move forward. As we said, we're now up to 112 million covered lives having added, 5 million this quarter, but then we announced adding another 14 million in the first month of this -- of the second quarter. So the lives will continue to grow through a bunch of different channels, and we see a very significant pipeline in the number of lives that will be added throughout the year. The result of that, of course, is given our capture rate, which has now increased 26% this quarter alone, that will have a substantial impact going forward, we believe, on the top line revenue. So the opportunity continues to be there. And as I said, yes, the guidance is now $130 million, $135 million, but we're trying to be conservative as we enter the second quarter.

Great. Just last clarification. Do you have a number of DTE clients for the quarter?

We don't give the number of clients of DTE. But I think as you heard on the discussion, we continue to be really bullish on the DTE side. The pipeline is growing significantly. As you know, we've essentially rebuilt that entire organization, adding 5 new people, senior executives -- 2 very senior executives, actually, 3 within the last 4 weeks who have all been trained and are ready to go. We're seeing a lot of momentum on the DTE side. And plus, we're looking at some pretty big enterprise potential clients in the next several quarters that hopefully we'll be able to talk about in Q2 and then into Q3. So we remain pretty bullish on the DTE side.

We'll take our next question from Stephanie Davis with SVB Securities.

This is Anna Kruszenski on for Stephanie. Congrats on the quarter. So first, I actually want to go back to the DTE segment. And I was hoping you could talk about what you're seeing in terms of employer demand trends because our checks have consistently pointed to vendor consolidation around employee benefits packages, given all the point solutions deployed during the pandemic. So just curious if you're seeing any impact of that on new wins in the DTE channel, since you did note some legacy client attrition there?

As I'll reiterate is that a lot of people are talking about the macro environment and what's happening. I will tell you that if you look at what the #1 or #2 priority for HR executives, if you go to the meetings and you talk to them firsthand, what they're going to tell you is we need to continue to add mental health services to our employees. There is no lack of interest or need from any of the DTE employers about the need for mental services for their employees. And in fact, I would say we're seeing a significant interest in that. I had the opportunity recently to go to one of these very large employer conferences and got a chance to walk the halls and talk to people. And the interest in mental health continues to be just incredibly high.. So I think that along with our reinvigoration of what we're doing on the DTE side to be able to look at the pipeline and grow the pipeline, we'll have a significant impact. So I would say and answer to your question is we know what the macro environment looks like, but we haven't seen any really significant impact or really much of an impact on that on our business.

Got it. That's very helpful. And then just a quick follow-up, Jon. I was wondering if there's any update on just how you're thinking about the business longer term since being in the CEO seat? And if you could maybe talk about like the biggest lessons learned so far since joining the company?

Yes. I would -- so I would say that we and the team really continue to be focused on path to profitability. We said that from day 1, we continue to lean in on that. And as you can see from the upgraded guidance, we've now moved it from the first half of 2024 to the end of the first quarter because we are really focused on profitability. So that's A. B is we've had significant growth as we said we would to move to a B2B enterprise solution, and you're seeing tremendous results on that. And I would say talking about the DTE side and the stabilization of the consumer side, you've heard. But the whole business in terms of the large environment, as I've said in my comments, there is just no other time like it's been in mental health relative to what everybody is looking for and what the need is. So I would say, one, incredibly -- continue to be incredibly optimistic to really, really happy with the results from both Q4 and Q1 of this year. And as we stated before, we have a very, very significant leverageable model. When you look at the need, the real solution for significant parts of this country is to have a telehealth mental health solution that is large and is scalable compared to every other -- most other options that are out there for therapy.

[Operator Instructions] We'll take our next question from Ryan Daniels with William Blair.

This is Jack Senft on for Ryan Daniels. I'll reiterate the comments on the solid quarter. So I know you're beginning to pivot your approach from the growth at all cost mindset to more of a focus on cost controls and profitability. The last few quarters, you have said that you reduced headcount and specifically really from third quarter last year to this quarter, and it sounds like -- or at least it sounds like in your prepared remarks. I'm curious, was this the largest contributor to the pretty significant decrease in G&A compared to last year, both sequentially and year-over-year? And then if so, is the headcount ended an okay level now? Or are you planning on reducing headcount even more? I guess I'm just trying to parse out the cadence of G&A and kind of how we should think about that going forward?

Thanks for the question, Jack. So we can get into the ledger items, but I would say at a high level, the significant progress we made on infrastructure in the last couple of quarters, so starting late in the third quarter and then finally, with more recent efficiencies and reductions that we made at the end of the first quarter were really results of progressing a lot of our operational capabilities and building infrastructure and then getting leaner and more efficient as we went. So I would look at -- I mentioned Q1 overall OpEx levels, but the incremental reductions that we've recently made would be an additional $800,000 on a net basis of savings to the bottom line. And I would say between -- from Q3 of 2022 to Q4 into Q1, headcount was a big part of that, but there were several other items I earlier explained across all 3 major categories of our spend. We've talked about media, and I've talked about the efficiencies we've gained there. Outside of that, what has been a pretty large cost for us was in third-party spend contractors, vendors across the business as we were building capabilities to what we've seen now is a really efficient and scalable infrastructure going forward.

Perfect. And then just as a quick follow up, I know that you guys saw an improvement in provider retentions last quarter, and I believe it sounded like it continued into this quarter again. So I guess just more like more higher level, is it more admin burden as to why providers are leaving? Or I guess is there anything specifically to call out as to why this improved? And then just as a quick second part, the providers that we're leaving, were they going to a competitor, possibly starting a new practice or something like that? Not sure if you get that granular, but just kind of curious on what you see here?

Yes. So I would say, first off, when somebody leaves, we really don't know where they're going, right. So I don't want to be presumptuous and trying to decide where they go or actually, why they're usually leaving. I mean we do some post surveys. But on the other side of the coin, we've talked about adding 800-plus therapists this quarter. When you think about that, that's a remarkable number for the size and scope of this company and the number of total therapists we have. And the reason that people are coming to Talkspace are pretty clear. One, they get enormous positive feedback in how we treat them. We are very engaged with our therapists. We've got a bunch of focus groups. We know that they like working here. We know they like the flexibility. We've added -- actually, we've made some recent product modifications to make their lives, what I'll say, even better, not just how they're getting paid, but really more about that. They actually now can help select the type of client that they want to interact with to some degree. So that's a different approach for our matching algorithm. So not only can the member match now, but the therapist also could match. So all in all, our -- not just impression, but our surveys are therapists really like working here. They like coming here. They're satisfied. They like the feedback. And quite honestly, I think we've talked about it before, but the average, I guess, the therapy time here or the therapist experience is 8 years or greater. So it's not just that it's a very, what I'll call, mature group of therapists that have been around a long time, and they know what they're looking for, and they know when they're happy.

[Operator Instructions] All right. And there are no further questions at this time. I would like to turn the call back over to Jon Cohen for closing remarks.

Thank you, and thank you again for everybody who joined the call. I want to take this opportunity to again emphasize my continued optimism around the business and its prospects. We believe we have a tremendous opportunity to leverage our great brand, our market leadership position, our comprehensive product suite and our clinical and operational capabilities to grow the business and to reach profitability in the near future. Thanks, everyone, for joining us today, and have a great evening.

Thank you. That does conclude today's presentation. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.