These therapists say a union can preserve the profession in the face of private equity takeover

We both work for LynLake Centers for WellBeing, one of the largest mental health clinics in the Twin Cities. Our workplace was acquired by ARC Health in October 2023. ARC Health is a conglomerate that buys healthcare companies with the help of private equity investors whose chief priority is their profit margin. We’ve watched private equity erode the collaboration, creativity and community at LynLake that we were both drawn to initially. We need a democratic workplace to preserve the integrity of our profession.

Private equity firms reduce a company’s expenses by any means necessary, then sell the company for a profit after a few years. Since LynLake Centers for WellBeing was acquired by ARC Health, therapists have continued to feel the strain, as our company is stripped back to make it appear more profitable. Employer retirement contributions have been reduced, raises have been withheld and health benefits are increasingly inaccessible. Additionally, hour requirements have risen. 

Industry wisdom suggests therapists know their capacity and should adjust their caseload accordingly. In reality, the company’s fixed weekly hour requirements pressure many therapists to overextend themselves. Therapists are only compensated for the hours they spend with clients each week. However, therapists spend many hours on paperwork, care coordination and consultation each week. These hours are not reimbursable by insurance, so ARC Health disregards them when calculating a therapist’s hours worked. When ARC Health requires therapists to see more clients per week to increase their profit margins, they are also requiring us to spend more time coordinating care for each new client — unpaid. 

In addition to this impact on quality of care, private equity subjects therapists to a punitive work culture. Time off due to illness, a training or a client cancellation functionally counts against a therapist’s required hours, forcing us to increase productivity in future weeks to ensure we meet the quota. Repercussions for not meeting hour requirements are severe: A therapist may lose their office space or even their health insurance benefits. At one of the largest mental health clinics in the Twin Cities, fewer than 20 of roughly 240 therapists qualify to receive health benefits, according to a former member of leadership. 

If a client cancels a session due to ICE raids, we should not have to worry about keeping our health insurance. If a client cancels a session to support their community in the aftermath of the Annunciation shooting, we should not have to defend our hours worked. 

When therapists are subjected to an unlivable wage, unaffordable health insurance and unmanageable caseload expectations, our ability to show up week after week becomes more and more difficult. 

In the wake of private equity takeover in mental health spaces, we believe a worker-led union is the only way therapists stand a chance to continue doing this job sustainably. After forming a supermajority of support amongst our coworkers, we filed for a union election and are voting with our coworkers to form a union this month. 

Without a union contract, mental health organizations like LynLake Centers for WellBeing can change our pay, work status, health insurance access or the number of clients we must see per week at any time without our consent. In fact, this has already happened at LynLake; we know from personal experience and from colleagues that therapists who were hired on before the company was acquired by ARC Health were promised higher pay and opportunities for pay advancement. After ARC Health took over, pay was capped at a rate that is low even by industry standards. 

These changes were not made with therapists in the room, but by a “compensation committee” run by ARC Health employees. The people who are making decisions about how to do this work should be the therapists themselves, not faraway private equity businessmen who have no knowledge of what it is like to do this job. 

At a time when our work is more important than ever, a therapist union creates working conditions by us, for us, so we can focus on what is most important: caring for our clients.