We, the undersigned clinicians, patients, employees, and community members, call on Lancaster General Hospital/University of Pennsylvania Health System to immediately halt and reverse its decision to mandate that employees use Lyra Health, a venture capital–financed mental health services platform, as their primary or exclusive option for employee mental health care.

This decision was made without meaningful consultation with the employees it directly affects. That alone is disqualifying. Mental health care is deeply personal. No employer should impose a single, profit-driven platform on employees seeking support — particularly without discussion, transparency, or consent.

We are alarmed by the following specific harms this mandate creates:

Quality of care and limited provider access. Venture capital–backed platforms frequently prioritize scalability and cost-cutting over clinical quality. Employees deserve access to licensed, credentialed, and experienced mental health professionals — not a curated network optimized for investor returns. Restricting provider choice directly limits the quality and appropriateness of care available to staff.

Loss of continuity of care. Many employees have existing therapeutic relationships with providers outside this platform. Forcing a transition mid-treatment is clinically harmful and ethically unacceptable. Continuity of care is a foundational principle of mental health treatment — and this mandate severs it.

Privacy and data concerns. Mental health data is among the most sensitive personal information that exists. We demand to know:  Who owns the data collected by this platform? How is it stored, shared, or monetized? The Lyra platform uses AI to analyze session content or behavioral patterns and does not offer clinicians or the patients to opt out of the use of AI. Employees have the right to full transparency and the right to refuse data collection beyond what is clinically necessary.

Use of AI in clinical settings without informed consent. Many VC-backed mental health platforms incorporate AI tools into assessments, triage, and even therapeutic interactions. Employees must have clear, informed choice about whether AI is involved in their care — this is not optional disclosure.

Financial burden on independent practices. This mandate effectively defunds mental health professionals in the surrounding community who have served hospital employees and their families for years. Directing all employee mental health spending to one platform harms local practitioners and reduces the broader ecosystem of care.

We are not opposed to the hospital system offering this platform as one option among many. We are opposed to coercion — to the removal of employee autonomy in a domain as fundamental as mental health.

We call on Lancaster General Health/University of Pennsylvania Health System to take the following immediate steps:

1. Suspend the mandate pending a formal review conducted with employee input.

2. Convene an employee task force — including frontline staff, union representatives, and mental health clinicians — to evaluate mental health benefit options.

3. Disclose the full terms of any financial arrangement with Lyra Health, including any incentives, commissions, or cost-sharing agreements.

4. Publish a clear data privacy policy detailing exactly how employee mental health data is used, stored, shared, and protected.

5. Guarantee that employees with existing therapeutic relationships can continue seeing their current providers, covered by their benefits, without the clinicians having to be a 1099 contractor with Lyra.

6. Ensure any AI-assisted tools within the platform require explicit, informed employee and patient consent before use.

Healthcare workers spend their careers caring for others under extraordinary pressure. They deserve mental health benefits that put their wellbeing — not a platform's growth metrics — first. We urge hospital leadership, state regulators, and elected officials to act on behalf of the people who keep our hospitals running.

We will not be silent when the people caring for our community are denied care that is safe, private, and their own to choose.