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A clinical therapy partner for executive coaching firms.
A confidential, vetted referral channel for the coachee who needs more than coaching. When the work crosses from development into clinical territory, you need somewhere to send them that protects the client, the engagement, and your firm's standing. Matched clinicians. Clear scope. No coaching relationship disrupted.
A clinical referral channel for the firms doing executive development at the top.
This page is for founders and principals of executive coaching firms, including enterprise coaching networks and boutique CEO-coaching practices, who want a clinical therapy partner to refer coachees who need something coaching is not designed to provide. If that is you, the rest of this page is the briefing document.
CEREVITY operates as a clinical network with direct relationships between the network, the clinicians, and the partner firm. There is no third-party broker layer. Coachees you refer are matched, not first-served. Scheduling and intake run through CEREVITY infrastructure. Care is private-pay, out-of-network, and entirely separate from the coaching engagement by design, which is what keeps the boundary clean.
Our clinicians are independent licensed professionals. Many have worked with senior executives and founders before and understand where coaching ends and clinical work begins. CEREVITY exists in part because coaches regularly encounter coachees whose presenting issues have moved past the scope of coaching, and the absence of a trusted, confidential place to refer them is a real liability for the coach, the firm, and the client.
Coaching and therapy are different disciplines, and the handoff between them is where firms get exposed.
The reason your coaches sometimes feel stuck is not a failure of coaching. It is that some of what surfaces in a coaching relationship is clinical, and clinical work sits outside the scope, the training, and the professional boundaries of coaching. The handoff is the hard part, and most firms do not have a built one.
Coachees at the executive and founder level present with the same profile a clinician would recognize: high-functioning anxiety maintained at significant cost, depression that performs as drive, the isolation of leadership, and identity questions that coaching can name but is not licensed to treat. When a coach senses they have crossed that line, they need a referral they trust, not a directory.
A referral that fails is worse than no referral. Sending a high-profile coachee into a generic search, an insurance directory, or an underqualified provider risks the client's care, the coaching relationship, and the firm's reputation. The value of a clinical partner is that the handoff is warm, confidential, and matched to someone equipped for this population.
What changes when the channel is built for this handoff: clinicians experienced with executives and founders, session formats long enough for real clinical work, a confidential intake that does not loop back into the coaching engagement, and a scope boundary that lets the coach keep coaching while the clinical work happens somewhere appropriate.
What CEREVITY clinicians treat that coaching is not scoped to address.
The clinical scope is built for the coachee who has moved past what coaching can responsibly hold, not as a replacement for the coaching itself.
Clinical depression behind drive
The executive presents as relentless and high-output, and the coaching frame reads it as ambition. Underneath is a treatable mood disorder that coaching cannot diagnose or treat. This is a referral moment, not a coaching one.
Anxiety that coaching cannot resolve
Performance anxiety, panic, and high-functioning anxiety maintained at real cost. Coaching can name the pattern; treating it is clinical work that needs a licensed clinician.
Trauma surfacing in development work
Leadership-development work sometimes surfaces history that belongs in therapy. When it does, continuing to work it inside coaching is outside scope and outside the coach's professional protection.
Substance use and compulsive patterns
Drinking, stimulant use, and compulsive overwork that have crossed from habit into clinical concern. A coach who recognizes this needs somewhere confidential and equipped to send the coachee.
Identity collapse and role loss
Founders post-exit, executives after a transition, leaders whose sense of self has fused with the role. Coaching can support the next chapter; the grief and identity work underneath is often clinical.
Relationship and family strain
The personal cost of the executive life shows up in marriages and families. This is therapeutic territory, and a coaching engagement is not the place to carry it.
Acute stress and crisis moments
A board crisis, a public failure, a health scare. When a coachee hits an acute moment, the coach needs a clinical partner who can take an intake quickly rather than a waitlist.
When coaching and therapy run in parallel
Sometimes the right answer is both, with clean boundaries. A clinical partner makes parallel work possible without the coach overstepping or the therapy bleeding into the coaching frame.
Three session formats, each chosen for the work.
Most referral options offer one session length. CEREVITY offers three, because the clinical work a referred coachee needs varies. The choice is made between the clinician and the client, not by what a payor will reimburse.
The steady cadence of ongoing therapy. Most clients spend most of their care in this format.
For work that needs more room than a standard hour. Focused work on a specific transition or decision.
For work that needs uninterrupted time to reach resolution within a single session.
Because CEREVITY operates outside the insurance reimbursement model, session length is set by the clinical work, not by what a payor will reimburse. That is the structural reason all three formats can exist on the same network, and why a referred coachee can be matched to the format their situation actually requires.
Ready to scope a referral partnership?
Briefings are scoped to your firm. We respond personally within 48 business hours with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the referral relationship you are evaluating, including how the scope boundary is defined.
Request a briefing →How a coachee is matched.
Matched, not first-served. Here is the process that produces the match for a coachee you refer.
The eligible individual submits a confidential intake form covering presenting issues, modality preference, professional context, and scheduling parameters. The form is operated by CEREVITY, 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 coachee based on the review. The coachee receives the match with the clinician's profile, modality, and credentials, plus a direct online scheduling link.
The coachee schedules directly through CEREVITY infrastructure. No phone handoff. First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of the match.
Care continues with the matched clinician on the cadence the clinical work requires, in 50-minute, 90-minute, or 3-hour sessions, without an employer-imposed cap.
Capability comparison for Executive Coaching Firms.
A vendor evaluation framework on the dimensions that matter when scoping a coachee-tier-tier offering for coachees. Both models have a place. They are designed for different populations.
| // Dimension | Typical EAP | Exec-tier platform | CEREVITY |
|---|---|---|---|
| Network model | Broker layer between coaching firm 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 & scheduling | Phone handoff to clinician's line | App-based intake and scheduling | Network-operated intake, direct online scheduling |
| Session formats | Standard 50-min; capped session counts | Standard 45 to 50-min sessions | 50-min, 90-min, and 3-hr formats, no cap |
| Clinical scope | Acute, broadly applicable concerns | Workforce-wide, executive tier as upsell | Built around Executive Coaching Firms presenting issues |
| Modality fit | Generalist talk therapy | Generalist therapy with some specialty | CBT, DBT, psychodynamic, matched at intake |
| Reach | National via roster density | National telehealth, roster variance | All 50 states via telehealth |
| Payment model | Coaching Firm-sponsored, in-network | Per-employee-per-month seat pricing | Private-pay, out-of-network, partnership agreement |
| Coaching Firm visibility | Aggregate, broker-mediated | Vendor dashboards with engagement | Administrative reporting only |
| Right fit for | Workforce-wide acute support | Mid-tier ongoing with executive add-on | Executive Coaching Firms, end-to-end |
What the coaching firm sees, and what it does not.
For a coachee-tier-tier channel to function, the participating coachee has to trust that engaging with it does not create 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 coachee's clinical content.
- Whether a specific named coachee 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.
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. The partnership agreement defines administrative reporting scope in writing before going live.
What the first 30 days look like.
The hardest part of a coachee-tier-tier partnership is not the contract. It is the period between signature and the first coachee 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 in this window.
Your team provides the eligible-individual list. CEREVITY confirms it against the network side and establishes the verification path that runs at the point of intake. Only eligibility confirmation flows forward.
CEREVITY provides a confidential, coachee-tier-appropriate comms template explaining the benefit, the privacy posture, and how to access intake. Your team adapts it to your voice.
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 coaching firm.
Three axes a coaching-firm founder can defend when deciding to formalize a clinical partner. The specifics vary by firm; the structural argument does not.
Professional protection and reduced liability.
Coaching outside scope is a real exposure for the coach and the firm. A defined clinical referral partner gives coaches a clear, trusted handoff at the moment work crosses into clinical territory, which protects the client, the coach, and the firm's standing.
Engagement quality and outcomes.
A coachee who is getting appropriate clinical care alongside coaching makes better use of the coaching. Removing the clinical weight from the coaching frame lets the development work actually progress, which is what the client and the sponsor are paying for.
Differentiation and enterprise trust.
Enterprise buyers and sophisticated individual clients increasingly ask what a coaching firm does when a client needs more than coaching. A named, confidential clinical partner is a differentiating answer and a signal of seriousness in competitive RFPs.
Questions coachees and their teams ask first.
Clinicians in the CEREVITY network are independently licensed professionals operating under their own licensure and the confidentiality and privacy obligations that attach to it. The handling of any protected health information, and the specific agreements that govern it including any Business Associate Agreement, are defined in writing in the partnership agreement before the partnership goes live, scoped to your firm's structure and the referral relationship.
No. The clinical work is confidential between the clinician and the client. The coach and firm receive only what is contractually appropriate, typically confirmation that a referred individual connected with care, and never the clinical content, the issues being addressed, or the session detail. This boundary is what keeps the referral clean and the coaching relationship intact.
No. CEREVITY provides clinical therapy, which is a different discipline from coaching. The partnership is built to support the boundary, not erode it. Coachees remain your clients; the clinical work happens in a separate, confidential channel scoped for exactly that purpose.
Part of the partnership is a clear, agreed scope boundary so coaches recognize the referral moment and have a defined path to act on it. CEREVITY can also be a clinical consult for the coach when the line is genuinely ambiguous, without the coachee being identified.
No. CEREVITY is private-pay and out-of-network by design. The structure is intentional: it is the only way to deliver the clinical scope, session formats, and confidentiality posture this population requires.
Partnership structure and who bears the cost of care, whether the coachee, the sponsoring employer, or the firm, are defined in the briefing. Pricing depends on the shape of the referral relationship and volume. The briefing call is where we identify the right structure, and the cost falls out of that.
First sessions are typically scheduled within 5 to 10 business days of intake, depending on modality requirements and scheduling parameters.
Through a briefing call. Use the form below or email [PARTNERSHIPS EMAIL] directly. Briefings are scoped to your firm; we respond personally within 48 business hours.
Tell us about your firm. We respond within 48 business hours.
Briefings are scoped to your firm. Share a few details below and we will respond personally with proposed times and any prepared materials relevant to the referral partnership you are evaluating.
The structural argument on this page is based on the firsthand experience of CEREVITY clinicians who have served on EAP panels, combined with widely-published industry estimates of EAP utilization and Executive Coaching Firms-specific data where cited. Specific contractual scopes, including the administrative reporting boundary and the BAA structure, are confirmed in writing in the partnership agreement before any partnership goes live.
