Kyan Health is transforming how U.S. employers deliver personalized behavioral health and employee assistance programs (EAPs) to their workforce. In an interview, Kyan Health Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer Konstantin Struck talked about the company’s approach: delivering premium-quality care, backed by 11,000 providers across all U.S. states and 140,000 globally, at a price point mid-market and enterprise employers can afford, with full HIPAA compliance and state-level licensure.
The company’s origins date back to the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when employers were confronting a sharp rise in workforce mental health needs. Co-founder Vlad Gheorghiu managed the mental health program at McKinsey, which became a blueprint for Kyan Health, one shaped by firsthand experience with the shortcomings of traditional EAPs. Struck noted that legacy EAPs failed to drive meaningful engagement or deliver on clinical outcomes, the two metrics U.S. enterprise buyers care about most. Premium behavioral health platforms set a higher clinical bar, but at price points that put them out of reach for most U.S. employers.
Kyan’s model was designed to close that gap: delivering the clinical quality and user experience employers expect from premium behavioral health platforms, at a price point that mid-market and enterprise employers can scale.
“We are filling a critical gap in the market,” Struck said.
Kyan’s clinical model is built around the principle that mental health needs are not static, an employee who benefits from coaching today may need clinical therapy tomorrow. The personalized approach begins with an AI-guided well-being self-assessment that considers context, intent, and severity. The goal is to match employees to the right type and level of care, whether that’s a therapist, a coach, or a self-guided program, based on what they share, while care decisions and counseling remain grounded in licensed clinical support.
The breadth of options reflects the range of care Kyan provides, from stress management and coaching to clinical therapy and crisis intervention. The self-assessment is a scalable way of understanding employee needs without requiring an intake call or forcing people to use a hotline, which can be a barrier for those initially hesitant to disclose their situation. It also accounts for cases where symptoms may point to a different clinical need than what the employee initially assumes.
“We are all stressed these days, but stress varies. Stress over a troubled teenager at home is different from stress for someone who is a caregiver to a loved one and someone else who is worried about their finances,” Struck said. “Often what we see is that many members come with symptoms without actually knowing what root causes are behind all of that.”
The assessment feeds a personalized care pathway that can guide members to self-guided tools, coaching or clinical care, and adjusts as their needs evolve. Kyan also supports direct booking with vetted, licensed therapists, with appointments available in under three days.
Struck pointed out that premium care only works if employees actually use it, and across the EAP and mental health industry, that remains the biggest unsolved problem. The main challenge is overcoming employees’ negative experiences with EAPs and the perception that these programs have nothing to offer them. EAPs often position mental health services, or employees interpret them, as a solution for a personal crisis. If you were to ask, many people would not admit they are in a crisis or close to a crisis, Struck observed.
Beyond the member experience, a critical part of the equation is how organizations launch and sustain mental health programs across their workforce. Through Kyan Engage, the company helps chief human resource officers, managers and HR teams launch mental health benefits in a way that builds trust before employees reach a crisis. The solution includes tailored communication assets, nudges, manager resources and workforce-specific materials designed around individual needs to increase adoption.
While a family pet passing away or going through a difficult time in a teenage son or daughter’s life are not what most people might think of as a crisis, that can still be a valid reason for receiving assistance and getting qualified support.
“It’s important to frame mental health services in a way that 100% of your workforce feels invited and doesn’t feel stigmatized or views them as only for people in a crisis,” Struck explained.
Struck pointed out that there is an important role for AI to play in improving access and navigation, but Kyan believes it should never substitute for counseling itself, particularly given concerns about the performance of AI chatbots in clinical settings. Instead, Kyan uses AI selectively, through KAI, its AI-guided care navigation layer; the platform personalizes the care journey and streamlines operations behind the scenes, rather than replacing licensed care.
One way Kyan delivers premium quality without premium pricing is through efficiency across its back-end operations. The approach extends to how the company builds its provider network: using technology to source providers at scale, while deploying experienced clinicians at the points where human judgment matters most, such as assessing clinical quality and therapeutic approach before a provider joins the network. The result is an extended network of 11,000 providers across all 50 U.S. states without the overhead that typically drives up costs for employers.
Kyan measures ROI in a few different ways. A reduction in medical claims related to mental health is one. Struck said that 90% of its clinical cases show significant improvements after the third session. Other factors include short and long term disability and productivity metrics. Kyan also offers case studies for some of its clients, including Hitachi Energy and Swiss sportswear brand On.
At Hitachi Energy, using Kyan led to a more than 50% improvement in staff commitment and participation. Prior to working with Kyan, existing EAPs were fragmented and lacked a unified approach to mental health support. As a global workforce with employees spread across different countries, they needed a solution that could be inclusive and sensitive to Hitachi Energy’s diverse cultural and linguistic needs. After using the program, employee engagement with mental health and well-being programs rose sharply. Mental health stopped being a taboo subject and could be more proactively addressed because staff felt more comfortable discussing it. This meant that managers could proactively address concerns before they escalated into larger problems. There was also a decline in absenteeism and signs for improved overall productivity.
After working with Kyan, On achieved $1.3 million in productivity gains by reducing presenteeism, when staff work even when they’re unwell, and reduced voluntary attrition by 30%, resulting in $1.1 million in cost savings. Additionally, improved management of complex mental health cases helped avoid $500,000 in costs.
Kyan typically works with employers starting at 500 employees, with a sweet spot above 1,000 employees. In the U.S., its buyers include benefits consultants, brokers and employer benefits leaders looking to replace underperforming legacy EAPs, consolidate point solutions, improve engagement and demonstrate measurable ROI.
But behind the business case, Struck said, the urgency is personal. “Mental health doesn’t happen in a 45-minute session once a week. It happens at 1 a.m. when someone can’t sleep, on a Monday morning before a difficult conversation, during a school run after a tough diagnosis. The question is whether the support around them can keep up. Ours can.”
Although getting mental health support does not carry the same stigma it once did in corporate America, providing a user-centered experience based on trust is essential to improve engagement and adoption by employees. For employers weighing the cost control of legacy EAPs against the clinical quality of premium behavioral health platforms, Kyan’s argument is that the tradeoff is no longer necessary. Its model combines licensed care, AI-enabled navigation, local provider depth, employer services and performance accountability to deliver world-class quality employers can afford.
Photo: Richard Drury, Getty Images
