The mental health piece missing from executive benefits.
An executive benefits package protects a leader's retirement, income, estate, and physical health. It rarely protects the part of the job carrying the most load. CEREVITY adds confidential, private-pay clinical care for the senior people the rest of the package exists to keep.
Executive benefits are the compensation and protection elements offered above the standard employee package: deferred compensation, supplemental retirement, enhanced life and disability coverage, executive physicals, and financial counseling. Almost none of them include confidential mental health care. Adding a private-pay clinical benefit closes the one gap the role itself creates.
What CEREVITY is.
A nationwide network of independent licensed clinicians, offered as a confidential benefit for senior leaders.
CEREVITY is a nationwide network of independent licensed clinicians providing private-pay therapy by secure telehealth across all 50 states. It is not an app, not a coaching marketplace, and not an employee assistance program. Each leader is matched by hand to a clinician experienced with high-responsibility roles, and then keeps that clinician over time.
For a total rewards team, the structure is simple to reason about. Care is private pay with no insurance claim filed, so nothing routes through the company health plan and no claim record is created. The benefit sits above the existing employee assistance program rather than replacing it, and it is scoped in the partnership agreement to a named tier of leadership. That is what makes it usable: engaging with it costs a leader nothing in exposure.
Companies arrive at this from two directions. Some are building the clinical layer of an executive mental health benefit for companies from scratch. Others already run a broad corporate mental health program and need a senior tier that the broad program cannot reach.
Why executive benefits keep missing this.
The package is engineered around money, mortality, and physical health. The failure mode of the job is none of those.
Look at what a senior package is actually made of: deferred compensation, a supplemental executive retirement plan, split-dollar or key person life coverage, enhanced disability, an annual executive physical, relocation, financial counseling. Every one of those is a real protection, and every one of them protects an asset rather than a person. Benchmarking exercises reproduce the same list year after year, which is why benchmarking a leadership package against peers tends to confirm the gap rather than reveal it.
Meanwhile the thing the package does not cover is the thing most likely to end the tenure it was designed to extend.
of C-suite leaders say they are seriously considering quitting for a job that would better support their well-being, up from 69 percent a year earlier. Source: Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence, Well-being at Work survey, 2023. 3,150 respondents, including 1,050 C-suite leaders.
That is a retention number, and it belongs in the same conversation as vesting schedules and retention bonuses. A senior departure is rarely a single event; it is a slow decline in judgment, patience, and appetite that resolves into a resignation months later. Boards and total rewards teams increasingly treat this as key person risk rather than as a personal matter.
The standard answer, an employee assistance program, is structurally mismatched to this population. It is designed for high volume, short duration, and broad eligibility, and senior leaders use it least of anyone, both because the format does not fit the problem and because they will not route something this sensitive through a company channel. Our analysis of why benefits never reach executives sets out the pattern in detail.
The gap is not a spending gap. Most companies already pay for behavioral health in several places at once, which is why an honest comparison of an EAP against private therapy is usually more useful to a buyer than another vendor deck. The question is whether any of that spending is reachable by the twelve people whose departure would be a disclosure event.
Source · Boushey and Glynn, Center for American Progress, 2012, reviewing 31 case studies published 1992 to 2007.
What senior leaders actually bring to the work.
The presenting issues behind the performance, in the language of the role.
Sustained overload
The load does not come off at a promotion; it changes shape and grows. Chronic, unrecovered strain is the presenting pattern that executive burnout therapy is built to interrupt, usually well before anyone at the board table would call it burnout.
No peer inside the building
The people who report to a leader cannot hear the doubt, and the board evaluates rather than confides. Leaders absorb every hard call alone, which is the exact pattern leadership isolation therapy exists for.
Consequence anxiety
Decisions that move headcount, capital, or the share price carry a physical charge that does not discharge afterward. High-stakes anxiety degrades exactly the judgment the role is paid for, and it is invisible from the outside.
Decision fatigue
By the fourth quarter of a hard year, the volume of judgment calls exhausts the capacity to make them well. Decision fatigue shows up first as avoidance and delay, which read as strategy problems long before they read as clinical ones.
Sleep and vigilance
The mind that will not switch off. Chronic hyper-vigilance erodes the recovery that judgment depends on, and it is one of the earliest signals a clinician can work with, months before performance visibly changes.
The competence gap
Senior appointments frequently come with a private conviction of being found out. Imposter syndrome at this level does not look like insecurity; it looks like overwork, over-preparation, and an unwillingness to delegate.
Carrying the hard decisions
Restructurings, terminations, and closures are executed by people who are expected to absorb the human cost silently. It tends to surface in the executive who delivered the news rather than in the one who approved it.
What it costs at home
The hours and the mental load follow a leader home, and partners carry the overflow of a job that does not pause. Couples therapy is part of the network for exactly this reason.
We insured his life, his income, and his knees. Nobody insured the part of him that was actually failing.
Session formats built for an executive calendar.
Three lengths, no rigid weekly slot.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care in 50-minute sessions.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour can hold. See 90-minute sessions.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution. See 3-hour therapy intensives.
Care is delivered in 50-minute, 90-minute, and 3-hour sessions by secure telehealth, nationwide. A leader between board meetings can do real work in a single longer block rather than defending a standing weekly appointment that travel will break anyway. Continuity holds because the leader keeps the same clinician throughout, and the modality is matched at intake rather than assigned, whether the work is individual or includes a partner. When something is urgent, same-week access is the norm rather than the exception.
Close the gap in the package you already fund.
A confidential conversation about a leadership-tier benefit takes one call. Nothing about it touches the company health plan.
Start a partnership conversationHow an executive is matched.
Every leader is matched by hand, not by an algorithm running against an intake form. The clinician pool is senior by design, and the practice of working with chief executives is a specific competence rather than a general one.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. Operated by CEREVITY directly, not by a broker.
Intake is reviewed by CEREVITY's clinical leadership against the network's active capacity, current licensure footprint, and modality availability. This is the step that does not exist in an EAP.
A specific clinician is matched to the executive, who receives the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
Scheduling runs directly through CEREVITY infrastructure with no phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed session cap.
Capability comparison for executive benefits programs.
An evaluation framework on the dimensions that matter when scoping a leadership tier. All three models have a place; they are built for different populations.
| Dimension | Typical EAP | Executive-tier platform | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between employer and contractor roster | Single-vendor platform, W-2 or contracted pool | Independent clinical network with direct relationships |
| Clinician assignment | First contractor to reply with availability | Algorithmic matching on intake-form inputs | Clinical review by network leadership |
| Intake and scheduling | Phone handoff to the clinician's line | App-based intake and scheduling | Network-operated intake, direct online scheduling |
| Session formats | Standard 50-minute, capped session counts | Standard 45 to 50-minute sessions | 50-minute, 90-minute, and 3-hour formats, no cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable concerns | Workforce-wide, executive tier as an upsell | Built around the presenting issues of senior executives |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy | Generalist therapy with some specialty | CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, IFS, matched at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density | National telehealth, roster variance | All 50 states via telehealth |
| Payment model | Employer-sponsored, in network | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private pay, out of network, partnership agreement |
| Company visibility | Aggregate, broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement metrics | Administrative reporting only |
| Right fit for | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing care with an executive add-on | executive benefits programs, end to end |
If you are running a formal evaluation, our notes on what to look for in a private therapy provider cover the procurement side in detail. Buyers who are further along usually want the wider landscape of EAP alternatives before they narrow to one model.
What the company sees, and what it does not.
For a leadership tier to function, the participating executive has to believe that using it creates no visibility into their care. CEREVITY is built around that requirement.
- Confirmation that contracted services were provided to eligible individuals.
- Aggregate utilization at the partnership level, where contractually appropriate.
- Invoicing and eligibility reconciliation.
- Nothing tied to a specific named executive's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named executive has scheduled, attended, or engaged.
- What clinical issues are being addressed, or which clinician is assigned.
- Session notes, treatment plans, or diagnostic information.
- Any attendance detail at the individual level.
Clinicians are independent licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. Protected health information is held within the clinical infrastructure, and the agreements governing it are defined in writing before the partnership goes live. Our notice of privacy practices and privacy policy are published in full.
Clinical records, session content, and individual engagement data sit inside the clinical platform. The administrative layer the partner interacts with is structurally separate from the clinical layer.
Eligibility lists are maintained on the partner side and confirmed at the point of intake. Administering eligibility does not require the partner to receive clinical information back.
A Business Associate Agreement is executed where the partnership structure requires it, and whether one applies is a determination made with counsel rather than assumed. The partnership agreement defines the administrative reporting scope in writing before anything goes live. See also our terms of service.
Leaders ask about downstream exposure before they will engage at all, and the honest answer is what makes the benefit usable. We publish plain answers to the two questions that come up most: whether there are records an employer can see, and whether therapy shows up on a background check.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a leadership-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first executive in care.
A 60-minute kickoff with your team and CEREVITY's partnership lead. We confirm the partnership shape, the eligibility model, the administrative reporting scope, and the internal owner. The BAA, where applicable, is executed.
Your team provides the eligible-individual list. CEREVITY confirms it against the network and establishes the verification path at intake. Only eligibility confirmation flows forward.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, leadership-tier comms template explaining the benefit, the privacy posture, and how to access intake. It is written to be received without stigma.
Eligible individuals begin intake on their own cadence. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days. By day 30 the partnership is operational and a quarterly review cadence is in place.
The business case for the company.
Retention, performance, and recruiting are the levers, and they are the same levers the rest of the package is already pulling.
Retention of key leaders
Three quarters of C-suite leaders report seriously considering a move for better well-being support. Against that, the arithmetic of losing one of them is unforgiving: the cost of senior leader turnover runs to a multiple of salary once search, onboarding, and lost momentum are counted, and none of it appears in a benefits budget.
Sustained performance
Judgment, focus, and decision quality degrade under chronic unmanaged stress long before anyone steps back from the role. Care that addresses the underlying pattern rather than the surface symptom keeps the leadership team operating at the level the plan already assumes, which is the argument every executive wellness budget is implicitly making already.
Recruiting and signaling
A clinical benefit at the leadership tier is unusual enough to be noticed in a negotiation, and it signals that the company treats its operators as long-term assets rather than as line items. That reputation compounds, and it pairs naturally with the rest of a strategy for retaining senior talent.
Questions total rewards teams ask first.
What are executive benefits?
Executive benefits are the compensation and protection elements a company offers above the standard employee package, usually to a named group of senior leaders. The common components are non-qualified deferred compensation, a supplemental executive retirement plan, enhanced life and disability coverage, an annual executive physical, financial counseling, and perquisites such as relocation or a car allowance. They sit alongside, not inside, the broader employee mental health benefits a company already funds.
What should an executive benefits package include?
Beyond the standard financial and insurance components, a modern package should include confidential clinical mental health care that the leader can use without the company knowing. That is the piece most packages omit, and it is the piece that addresses the failure mode of the role rather than its financial outcomes. The reasoning is set out in why executives do not use your EAP and what to offer instead.
Do executives get mental health benefits?
Formally, yes: executives are covered by the company health plan and the employee assistance program like everyone else. Practically, those channels are the ones a senior leader is least willing to use, because both create a record and one of them is administered by the company. A separate private-pay tier, structured as concierge therapy offered as an executive benefit, is what closes the distance between coverage and use.
Is this coaching or therapy?
It is therapy, delivered by licensed clinicians, and it is distinct from executive coaching. Coaching focuses on performance and frequently reports back to a sponsor. Therapy is confidential clinical care with no stakeholder other than the leader, addressing stress, anxiety, depression, and the personal weight of the role. The distinction is drawn out in executive counseling versus executive coaching.
How do we add this to a package that already exists?
It is added as a defined benefit for a named tier, funded by the company and delivered independently of the health plan. There is no plan amendment and no claims integration, because no claim is filed. Our step-by-step guide to setting up confidential therapy for executives covers eligibility definition, funding, and internal communication.
Which leaders does it typically cover?
Scope is defined in the partnership agreement. Most companies start with the executive committee and the direct reports of the chief executive, then extend it to the wider officer group or to leaders in transition. Some tie eligibility to the population already named in succession planning, which keeps the definition defensible and small.
What does it cost the company?
Structure is agreed in the partnership conversation and depends on the number of leaders covered and the scope of access. CEREVITY is a private-pay network with transparent fees, so there are no insurance-driven surprises in the accounting. Standard individual rates are published on our pricing page.
How do we begin?
Use the briefing form on this page, or call CEREVITY at (562) 295-6650. You can also reach clinical leadership through the contact page. If you would rather see the client-side experience first, get started walks through intake exactly as a leader would encounter it.
Start a partnership conversation.
Tell us about the leadership group you want to cover and what the current package already includes. A member of CEREVITY's clinical leadership will follow up directly and confidentially.
Further reading and related partnerships.
Research, clinical writing, and the other partnerships CEREVITY runs.
Research and reports
For HR and total rewards
Clinical writing
A note on sources.
The 75 percent figure is from the Deloitte and Workplace Intelligence Well-being at Work survey (2023), which polled 3,150 respondents including 1,050 C-suite leaders in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia, and reported the same measure at 69 percent the previous year. The direction of that finding is corroborated independently by the Global Leadership Forecast 2025, a survey of 10,796 leaders across more than 50 countries, in which 71 percent reported increased stress and about four in ten of those leaders had considered leaving a leadership role to improve their well-being. Turnover cost figures are from Boushey and Glynn (2012), a review of 31 case studies published between 1992 and 2007, which found a median replacement cost of 21 percent of annual salary across roles excluding executives and physicians, and an upper bound of 213 percent for executive positions. The description of a standard senior package is drawn from published carrier and advisor materials, including this representative summary of executive benefit plans, none of which list mental health care among the components. The structural argument on this page rests on the firsthand experience of CEREVITY clinicians who have served on employee assistance panels. Specific contractual scopes, including any Business Associate Agreement, are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before a partnership goes live. Additional CEREVITY research is collected in the knowledge base.