Hey there. Shân here.

Welcome to The Census, a weekly newsletter to help you succeed in the behavioral healthcare industry.

Your top stories today: 

1. HEADLINES including a delay for California’s minimum wage bill, CMS’s ‘revolutionary’ new behavioral health integration model, and trauma-informed SUD treatment.

2. Money Moves: $55M for a startup that pays parents to become registered behavioral techs, Summa Health’s acquisition, and more. 

3. On Our Radar: Firms are pivoting to serve social health needs.

4. Quick Hits: This week’s top stories in less than a minute.

Let’s go.

P.S. We know you skim-read. We’ve designed this email so your jumpy brain can find the headlines that interest you most. Skim away.

Reading time: ~4.5 minutes.

This Issue Is Sponsored By Treatment Leads.

Generating inbound leads for your treatment facility can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be.

The Treatment Leads team generated over 20,000 inbound calls for our clients in December alone.

If you need more organic leads, fill out this form and set up a consultation today.

🩺 Cancer Patients Need Behavioral Health Care

Providing behavioral health services to oncology patients also makes financial sense.

Oncology is already one of the most expensive diagnoses for employers — and about a third of all cancer patients also have anxiety, depression, or an SUD. 

This (obviously) negatively affects their clinical outcomes.

➡  Oncology patients who do not receive behavioral health outpatient services are twice as likely to have an avoidable emergency room visit as those who do.

But while the benefits of oncology + behavioral health integration are clear, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. It’s highly dependent on the resources available to each cancer care provider.

Helping cancer care providers integrate care could become big business. Go deeper here. 

🧾 California’s New Minimum Wage Law May Be Delayed

Behavioral health providers will have to grapple with a new minimum wage signed into law three months ago, but many questions remain.

What’s happening: Well, that’s just it — no one is too sure. The law requires providers to eventually raise all minimum wages to at least $25 per hour for all staff. But looming questions include:

• When exactly the law will take effect

• If other state lawmakers will follow suit

• Whether the law will attract workers or just erode profit margins 

• Whether the state’s budgetary crunch will derail the law’s current implementation plan

The latest budget calls for a “trigger” to be added to the law. 

• The trigger would make the law effective only if certain conditions are met

• Currently, this would be “subject to General Fund revenue availability”

If this trigger is approved, it could postpone rate increases. If not, the law will take effect on June 1st. And sentiments are — at best — mixed. Read more. 

🤝 CMS Launches ‘Revolutionary’ Behavioral Health Integration Model

The state-based model will incentivize care coordination across physical, behavioral, and social providers.

What’s happening: Mental health issues affect one in four Medicare patients and ~40% of people on Medicaid — yet access to care providers is limited.

CMS’s Innovation in Behavioral Health (IBH) Model aims to screen all primary care patients for mental health conditions and SUDs. 

IBH is set to launch this fall.

• Behavioral health practices will create interprofessional care teams 

• These will include behavioral and physical health providers, as well as community-based supports

➡ For patients, this integrated approach “will help them stay engaged and ultimately reach their health goals.”

➡ For providers, this is a “great opportunity to increase payment but also to show a true impact on how members are being treated.”

Sure sounds good. We eagerly await the execution. Go deeper here. 

📲 An Addiction App for Teens 

Boulder Care is extending its virtual SUD treatment to adolescents, starting in Washington.

What you need to know: Boulder Care’s app provides access to a team of clinicians and peer recovery coaches. 

• Their addiction specialists can prescribe buprenorphine, a medication for OUD

• Services will be available to eligible teens covered by the UnitedHealthcare Community Plan in Q2

Boulder Care will partner with pediatric primary care and community-based organizations in Washington, including schools. The startup will also:

• Bring on consulting experts in pediatrics and case managers with adolescent experience

• Hire peers (aged 18-35) who have lived experience with addiction

💔 Why it matters: For the first time in recorded history, the US teen drug death rate has seen an exponential rise. 

➡ Fentanyl is involved in 75% of all teen overdose deaths (22 every week in 2022). 

Teens need specialized support, not a one-size-fits-all SUD treatment approach. For example, peer recovery coaches may be particularly beneficial for them. Full press release here.

And speaking of specialized treatment for different demographics…

🧠 Psyclarity Health Expands Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Services

The male-specific provider has started to include gender-specific care for women.

Men and women respond differently to substance use, and they have different needs when it comes to treatment.

• Sexual abuse and domestic violence are common triggers for substance abuse in women

• Psyclarity Health’s care model aims to create an environment of safety, empowerment, and healing to address these core traumas

This is yet another example of addiction treatment providers niching down. If the clinical and financial benefits follow, expect way more. Full press release here. 

Money Moves

Funding rounds, mergers, & partnerships

👪 $55M Series A for parent-led ABA therapy: San Francisco-based Forta pays parents to become registered behavior technicians to treat their kids with autism. 

💵 General Catalyst intends to buy Summa Health, one of Ohio’s largest integrated delivery systems, pending regulatory approval; Summa’s status will need to change to ‘for-profit.’ 

🧠 $1.5M for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation therapy and esketamine nasal spray: Greenbrook TMS raises debt financing.

💰 GEHA Ventures invests in addiction recovery startup You Are Accountable to enable better access to SUD treatment care.

📈 VC activity in behavioral health is expected to increase after a very slow 2023 (31 deals in Q4 — the least since 2020). Full report.  

On Our Radar: Social Health

What we’re watching this week

Element3 Health just rebranded to “Grouper,” and its new mission is to encourage healthy living through social connection.  

And we think they’re onto something. Big. 

Social isolation or loneliness increases your risk of premature death as much, or even more so, than smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity.

Yet:

• 😥 22% of millennials report having no friends whatsoever

• 👀 The average American hasn’t made a new friend in five years

• 💔 40% of US adults lost touch with nine (!) or more friends during the pandemic

We go to a doctor for our physical health and a therapist for our mental health, but who do we go to for our social health…? 

You can’t just throw someone straight into a group activity and expect them to thrive. 

They need tools and specialized support. Especially if they’re newly sober. 

Grouper is likely one of many firms that will focus on serving the growing social needs of Americans, and “social fitness” could become the next frontier in behavioral health. 

We’ll keep you posted. 

Quick Hits

Hot headlines in less than a minute 

💡 There’s still “a lot of white space” for consolidation in the outpatient SUD industry. Read more.

⚕️ IntegraNet’s WholeHealth Solution launches in Texas to streamline care coordination. 

🏥 West Central Florida to get first behavioral health urgent care center, thanks in part to funds from opioid manufacturers and distributors.

🧑‍💼 Hiring news! New CEOs for: Meridian Behavioral Health (Lewis Zeidner), Conway Behavioral Health Hospital (Beau Lynch), Cigna Healthcare (Brian Evanko), and Eleanor Health (William McKinney).

👀 Firing news: Array Behavioral Care laid off 10% of its workforce amid restructuring. 

🙃 Employee wellness services may not be ‘beneficial for workers at all.’ What a surprise. 

🔎 Evaluating the needs and readiness of healthcare systems is big business. Syra Health just partnered with the Indiana Department of Health, bringing Syra’s total current contract value to ~$970M.  

🤔 Employers can’t tell if they’re overpaying for healthcare which is an issue as they face stricter legal requirements to ensure less financial waste. 

💻 Related: Employers are more willing than ever to adopt virtual-first health plans, which can cut costs and improve members’ experiences — if executed well.

📝 Interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule finalized. Hopefully, it will make exchanging health data more efficient (at least that’s the aim).  

💰 Fathom’s AI coding solution for automated RCM is now on Google Cloud Marketplace.

🔮 2024 Behavioral Health Venture Outlook: The youth market is ripe for innovation and investment, and don’t expect 2024 to be the year of value-based care domination. More here.

❤️‍🩹 Barriers and opportunities in value-based care for OUD. 

🍔 Disparities in treatment will be examined at the Global Eating Disorders Symposium in March.  

📊 Deloitte released their “7 trends that may influence health care and life sciences in 2024.” None are surprising in any way. You’re welcome.

That’s it for this week. See you next Wednesday!

- Shân

P.S. Have a question? Hit reply, I read every one. 

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