Government Technology: TadHealth Streamlines Mental Health Funds for Calif. Schools

Since California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced a multibillion-dollar investment in student mental health in 2022, some school districts have found understanding and accessing available funds to be a challenge. It has been an opportunity for the technology company TadHealth, which stepped in to try to bridge that gap.

TadHealth’s digital platform supports districts in launching mental health programs by helping them navigate the state’s Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI), a program initiated under Gov. Newsom’s Master Plan for Kids’ Mental Health following the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a recent news release.

The idea for the company began with a personal observation from its founder and CEO, Ben Greiner. After watching a close friend struggle to access adequate mental health support, Greiner began thinking about how technology could make those systems easier to navigate.

“A student, for example, would walk down to the counseling office and no one would be there. They'd go back to class and not be able to connect to a counselor,” he said. “I realized we could do better, and that technology could really enable school counselors to deliver services in a better way."

The goal of TadHealth, which Greiner said was built with input from school professionals, was to make it easier for districts to manage and fund student mental health programs without being slowed down by medical billing processes.

“One of the pieces that we always think about, and why we’re serving districts, is this translation from health care to education,” he said. “A lot of that language ... ‘What is a CPT code,’ ‘what is a claim,’ ‘what is a modifier,’ is quite difficult for somebody who's providing school-based mental health services to really understand. So what we have seen and what we continue to do is really break that down and make it manageable and doable.”

CYBHI IN ACTION

According to the program's website, the Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative (CYBHI) was designed to make student behavioral health care more accessible, sustainable and integrated within schools. Guided by California’s Department of Health Care Services and administered by the health-care services company Carelon, the program involves funding and requirements for providers to ensure schools deliver mental health services on campus and get reimbursed for them.

But while funding has been available since 2024, the program got off to a slow start, according to reporting by Cal Matters in May 2025, because the state did not initially provide the necessary guidance and training to navigate the process of submitting claims. This was an opportunity for vendors like TadHealth. A news release last month said the company has since been involved in more than half of the state's school reimbursements for school mental health programs, which TadHealth's Head of Marketing Brian McKenzie said was determined by comparing data from the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) with the company’s internal records.

“The DHCS provides updated reimbursement numbers to participating cohorts every Tuesday during their CYBHI Office Hours,” he said. “We are able to determine this fact based on the numbers they provide and the reimbursements we see sent from TadHealth.”

ANAHEIM’S EARLY SUCCESS

In Orange County’s Anaheim Elementary School District (AESD), the efficiencies of working with a private-sector partner are already making a difference, according to one of the district’s program specialists, Shirley Diaz.

AESD, which serves approximately 13,000 students across 23 schools, began working with TadHealth in December 2024 after initially partnering with another vendor. The district trained its providers by February 2025 and began submitting claims the following month, Diaz said.

According to the news release, AESD secured more than $700,000 in its first reimbursement cycle and still expects to pass $1 million. However, Diaz noted that the district’s implementation of TadHealth was not without challenges.

"You have FERPA that protects the rights of students within the school setting, and you have HIPAA that protects patients’ confidentiality in the medical setting. ... For us, it was a rough implementation, but it’s going to change the landscape because the program is providing a sustainable pathway where we can submit those claims, and that’s where TadHealth comes in,” she said. “They developed a platform where they took that fee schedule, those billing codes, and put them in very educational-friendly language for us to understand,” she said. “People coming from the education side, they don’t know how to do medical billing.

”Diaz also said that, as of now, Anaheim has five categories of billing providers who submit mental health claims through TadHealth: school counselors, psychologists, associate and licensed clinicians, certified wellness coaches and registered nurses.

Anaheim’s experience comes amid an increase in student mental health needs statewide. A 2024-2025 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics found that 53 percent of public schools reported higher demand for mental health services than last year, while 56 percent cited “inadequate funding” as the main limitation to effectively providing them.

Diaz said the district’s investment in mental health infrastructure is about ensuring that students are regulated and prepared to engage in school — “this program is key,” she said.

“If a student is not ready to learn because there are pending needs such as stability, safety or mental health issues, they are never going to be able to learn and thrive the way that they are meant to,” she said. “I can tell you that it's a lot of work. ... I have a job to do and this is kind of like in addition, but it's for good reasons. I know the impact that it has on our students and our families.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Greiner said TadHealth aims to expand its services beyond California.“

A district contacts us, we're able to get them trained in less than 90 minutes. They're up and running, they're submitting claims, and then they start to reap the rewards of the reimbursements,” he said. “That's going to be a really important method as other states have increasingly more need, and you know people are observing California's success with this particular initiative.

”With CYBHI funding set to continue rolling out across the state, Greiner said he believes the combination of policy and purpose-built technology is key to sustaining mental health services long term.

“This program is not a simple program,” he said. “But it’s really empowering districts to unlock a new source of funds."

‍Editor's Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that five health professionals at AESD were submitting claims through TadHealth. It has been updated to reflect that five categories of health professionals are doing this work, representing hundreds of people.

Read the story on Government Technology's website here.