The Mental Health Professionals Equity Alliance (MHPEA) was founded by clinicians determined to address the growing imbalance of power in behavioral health care by confronting the structural forces undermining mental health care, and to ensure providers have a seat at the table where decisions about their work are made.

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For years, mental health professionals have worked under conditions shaped not by clinical standards but by financial and corporate interests. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, many clinicians transitioned into private practice in response to increasing demand and deteriorating working conditions. But instead of being supported, independent providers found themselves navigating shrinking reimbursement, opaque insurance practices, and platform models that extracted value without delivering long-term sustainability.

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Tensions were already high when the 2024 Change Healthcare cyberattack exposed just how fragile and exploitative the system had become. Providers went unpaid for weeks. Clients lost access to care. And the corporations responsible avoided accountability. The incident made clear what many already knew: the system is not designed to protect patients or providers. It is designed to protect corporate profit.

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In the aftermath, a growing number of mental health professionals recognized the need to organize. Informal conversations became strategy sessions. Shared frustration became shared purpose. MHPEA was created as a professional association committed to building power among clinicians and challenging the financial architecture that has come to define mental health care in the United States.

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