While concerns are rising across the globe about a new omicron subvariant, Nebraska continues to see falling COVID cases and hospitalizations.
OMAHA — Nomi Health, which offers COVID-19 testing in Nebraska, will offer $1 million in free behavioral health care to front-line health care workers in Nebraska and a handful of other states beginning this spring.
The free virtual care will be offered through a partnership with Tava Health, a 2½-year-old company that typically provides such care through large employers such as hospitals, school districts and universities.
Nomi has offered COVID-19 testing in Nebraska throughout much of the pandemic, first under contract as part of the state's TestNebraska program and later through its own community testing sites.
Dallen Allred, Tava's CEO and co-founder, said the free care will be primarily video-based talk therapy offered by providers in the communities that are being served. The company has contracts with therapists all over the country, including roughly 15 in Nebraska.Â
Services in Nebraska will start June 1, he said. A Tava team was slated to start reaching out to hospitals and clinics in Nebraska this week to help them begin getting the word out to employees.Â
Rebecca Langle, Nomi Health's director of corporate social responsibility, said the program is open to those who consider themselves front-line health care workers. Each person will have access to 12 sessions through the end of the year. The service also will be offered in Florida, Texas, Utah, Colorado and Hawaii.
Once a front-line health care worker signs up, Allred said, the company will determine what issues they're struggling with and whether they have any preferences in provider specialty or gender. If a patient meets with a therapist but later changes providers, their clinical notes will follow them.
While many employee assistance programs are designed for short-term use, he said, the Tava program is designed to work with short-, medium- and long-term cases.Â
With COVID-19, he said, demand for such services has skyrocketed. The good news is that awareness and acceptance of behavioral health issues is growing and the stigma is being pulled down bit by bit.
Photos: 2 years of images tell the story of the pandemic
A worker prepares to administer a COVID-19 test at the 2022 Winter Olympics, Tuesday, Feb. 1, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/David J. Phillip)
David J. Phillip
Workers wearing personal protective equipment bury bodies in a trench on Hart Island, Thursday, April 9, 2020, in the Bronx borough of New York. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)
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Francisco Espana, 60, looks at the Mediterranean sea from a promenade next to the Hospital del Mar in Barcelona, Spain, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. Francisco spent 52 days in the intensive care unit at the hospital due to the coronavirus, but today he was allowed by his doctors to spend almost ten minutes at the seaside as part of his recovery therapy. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
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Romelia Navarro, 64, weeps while hugging her husband, Antonio, in his final moments in a COVID-19 unit at St. Jude Medical Center in Fullerton, Calif., July 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)
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Masrat Farid, a healthcare worker, prepares to administer a dose of Covishield vaccine to Rubia Begum inside a hut during a COVID-19 vaccination drive in Gagangeer, northeast of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir on June 22, 2021. Farid has traveled long distances to vaccinate mostly shepherds and nomadic herders in the remote meadows of the Himalayan region of Indian-controlled Kashmir. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)
Dar Yasin
People watch burning funeral pyres of their relatives who died of COVID-19 in a ground that has been converted into a crematorium in New Delhi, India, Thursday, May 6, 2021. (AP Photo/Ishant Chauhan)
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Chinese paramilitary police wearing goggles and face masks march in formation at the Yanqing National Sliding Center during an IBSF sanctioned race, a test event for the 2022 Winter Olympics, in Beijing, Monday, Oct. 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
Mark Schiefelbein
New Yorkers who died during the coronavirus pandemic are projected onto the Brooklyn Bridge during a commemoration ceremony Sunday, March 14, 2021, in Brooklyn, NY. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
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Family members, reflected in the window, wave goodbye to nursing home resident Barbara Farrior, 85, at the end of their visit at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale on Thanksgiving, Thursday, Nov. 26, 2020, in New York. The home offered drive-up visits for families of residents struggling with celebrating the holiday alone. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Eduardo Munoz Alvarez
Cleric women wearing protective clothing and "chador," a head-to-toe garment, arrive a cemetery to prepare the body of a victim who died from the new coronavirus for a funeral, in the city of Ghaemshahr, in north of Iran, Thursday, April 30, 2020. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Ebrahim Noroozi
Woman attend their yoga exercise in a park while heavy fog envelops the areas of Lahore, Pakistan, Wednesday, Feb. 17, 2021. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
K.M. Chaudary
Debora Aberastegui holds the hands of her father Pedro Aberastegui through a plastic sleeve at the Reminiscencias residence for the elderly in Tandil, Argentina, Monday, April 5, 2021. Residents here do not have physical contact with their families or leave the residence due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but stay active with group activities within the facility. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Natacha Pisarenko
A neonatologist examines Maria Alvarez's newborn baby girl at the National Maternal Perinatal Institute in an isolated area reserved for mothers infected with COVID-19, in Lima, Peru, Wednesday, July 29, 2020. The 24-year-old first-time mother wept during her labor not just from pain, but because the baby would be born without her father. The baby's father died from the new coronavirus in June. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
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Protesters dance and embrace as a song plays over the speakers, during an ongoing protest against COVID-19 measures that has grown into a broader anti-government protest, in Ottawa, Ontario, on Thursday, Feb. 17, 2022. (Justin Tang/The Canadian Press via AP)
Justin Tang
Corazona Pena's body lies wrapped in plastic by a Peruvian COVID-19 specialized government team in Pucallpa, in Peru's Ucayali region, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
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Wearing masks and plastic gloves amid the spread of the coronavirus, girls raise her hands during class in Havana, Cuba, Monday, Nov. 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
Ramon Espinosa
Cast members wear face masks backstage under COVID-19 protocol measures during a performance of "Rusalka" opera at the Teatro Real in Madrid, Spain, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2020. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue)
Bernat Armangue
A patient rests in a chair next to his bed at the COVID-19 ward at a hospital in Barcelona, Spain, Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Emilio Morenatti
Patients lie on hospital beds as they wait at a temporary makeshift treatment area outside Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong, Friday, Feb. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
Kin Cheung
A pathologist conducts an autopsy on a man who died from COVID-19 in an anatomical theater at the Lviv National Medical University in Lviv, Western Ukraine, on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021. (AP Photo/Mstyslav Chernov)
Mstyslav Chernov
Siny Gueye, center left, is joined by other women fish processors to sing a blessing and thankful song at Bargny beach, east of Dakar, Senegal, Thursday April 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)
Leo Correa
A cat is carried inside a backpack in Wuhan on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Ng Han Guan
Israeli child Rafael Peled, 8, looks through a VR virtual reality goggles as he receives a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine from medical staff at the Sheba Tel Hashomer Hospital in Ramat Gan, Israel, Monday, Nov. 22, 2021. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Oded Balilty
Blanca Ortiz, 84, celebrates after learning from nurses that she will be dismissed from the Eurnekian Ezeiza Hospital, on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Aug. 13, 2020, several weeks after being admitted with COVID-19. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)
Natacha Pisarenko
Father Vasily Gelevan, wearing a biohazard suit and gloves to protect against the coronavirus, gives the Bible to kiss to Serafima Matveyeva, 92, who is suspected of being infected with the coronavirus, at her apartment in Moscow, Russia, May 26, 2020. In addition to his regular duties as a Russian Orthodox priest, Father Vasily visits people infected with COVID-19 at their homes and hospitals. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko)
Alexander Zemlianichenko
Residents climb onto chairs to buy groceries from vendors behind barriers used to seal off a neighborhood in Wuhan in central China's Hubei province on Friday, April 3, 2020. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)
Ng Han Guan
A health worker arrives to screen people for symptoms of COVID-19 in Dharavi, one of Asia's biggest slums, in Mumbai, India, Friday, Sept. 4, 2020. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Rafiq Maqbool
Coffins carrying the bodies of people who died of coronavirus and are stored waiting to be buried or incinerated in an underground parking lot at the Collserola funeral home in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, April 2, 2020. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
Felipe Dana
SOS Funeral workers transport by boat the coffin containing the body of a suspected COVID-19 victim that died in a river-side community near Manaus, Brazil on May 14, 2020. The victim, an 86-year-old woman, lived by the Negro river, the largest tributary to the Amazon river. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
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A woman bangs a pot in support of medical staff who are working on the front lines of the COVID-19 outbreak during a partial lockdown against the spread of the coronavirus in Brussels on March 31, 2020. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Francisco Seco
Jackals eat dog food that was left for them by an Israeli woman at Hayarkon Park in Tel Aviv, Israel on April 10, 202. When Tel Aviv was in lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, it cleared the way for packs of jackals to take over this urban oasis in the heart of the city. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Oded Balilty
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