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Welcome to The Census, your weekly roundup of what matters in behavioral healthcare.

Today, we’re breaking down:

• A new program creating "youth corps" for mental health

• What you need to know from PitchBook’s Q1 PE in healthcare report

• Your latest news headlines in under two minutes

Let’s dive in.

- Shân

P.S. Three autism-related studies were released this week that may impact providers. If you’re in a rush (who isn’t) use CTRL/CMD+F ‘autism’ to highlight them below.

Reading time: ~4.5 minutes.

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On Our Radar

What we’re watching this week 

🫡 New Program Will Create "Youth Corps" for Mental Health

The peer support program was announced this morning and will cover four states in the fall, with more to come.

Hundreds of young adults will be trained to help their peers access mental health care and other support via a new Youth Mental Health Corps initiative.

The program in a nutshell:

• Youngsters aged 18+ will spend ~12 months working at a school or nonprofit to help connect other young people to mental health support

• They’ll receive training in therapeutic communication, crisis intervention, behavioral health systems, and other skills

• They’ll get paid a stipend and earn state-specific mental health worker credentials and credits toward higher education degrees in behavioral health

The first-of-its-kind initiative aims to address the youth mental health crisis. More details in Axios’ exclusive report. 

💰 PitchBook’s PE in Healthcare Report

Healthcare dealmaking in Q1 was slooow. Here’s what to expect going forward.

What you need to know:

🤑 Investors are actively looking for healthcare deals to close amid increased access to cash.

🥴 But they’re being held back by a decidedly negative regulatory environment — and a chunky bid-ask gap. 

• As a result, only ~158 healthcare deals were closed in Q1, which is even more sluggish than 2023’s pace

• Just ~18 of these were in the behavioral health space

Other hurdles:

• ​​Deals are taking longer than expected, so adjustments need to be made for new locations and additions that haven’t been fully integrated 

• Insufficient post-2021 deal flow means new benchmark multiple ranges haven’t been set in many categories (e.g., autism therapy)

💸 If you’re looking to sell: Valuation expectation gaps can be reduced with creative deal structures.

• Think 50/50 splits, super minorities, seller rollover, heavy earnouts, and the very popular preferred equity

Sellers are also maximizing readiness before bringing platforms to market, and needing to ease buy-side fears around cybersecurity and HIPAA compliance risks (thanks, UnitedHealth). 

💰 If you’re looking to buy: You don’t need any help. It’s a buyer’s world out there. 

But a word of caution: Keep your nose clean.

There’s been an uptick in journalists investigating corporate greed in healthcare, and we don’t need to remind you that it’s a growing concern at a federal level, too. So just put patients and staff first, okay? 

Let’s get your news headlines. 

Catch Up Quick

This week’s top stories

Latest News

🏫 A school for autistic youth that costs $573k a year is allegedly rife with “bruised students and medication mix-ups.”

🚨 Clinical trials using ecstasy to treat PTSD may have been tainted by investigator biases and understated possible harmful effects.

💻 Talkspace has entered the Medicare market with plans to serve all traditional Medicare members by the end of the year.

💊 Nearly half of illicit fentanyl now comes in pill form, increasing the risk that people (especially kids) will unknowingly take it.

⛹️ Playing hardball with payer rates has paid off for behavioral health giant Universal Health Services.

😴 Mental health sleep monitoring is now possible after Oxehealth received regulatory clearances for their new tech. 

🎉 The landmark $125B CARE Act aims to combat the opioid and substance use crisis.

💸 Starting next year San Francisco will tie welfare to drug rehab for single adults with no dependants. 

👀 Mainstream autism therapies may soon expand to include VR, oxytocin, biomarkers, and even psychedelics. 

🤑 The HHS has announced funding to accelerate health IT adoption in behavioral health settings.

🍄 Insurance and commercialization were hot topics at the Perspectives on Psychedelics conference. 

🤖 Mental health chatbots can be helpful in supporting roles but (shocker) aren’t a substitute for therapy with a human. 

📉 Collaborative care models can reduce total healthcare costs by 13% per member per month. 

🦠 Customized synbiotics may improve autism symptoms via the gut-brain axis.

🛌 30 of 49 beds in a New Jersey hospital’s $10M ED expansion will be for behavioral health and substance use disorder patients. 

🌊 Mental health platform Wave landed its first payer contract in California.

👪 The shift to value-based care may make family programming in SUD treatment indispensable. 

💉 North Carolina counties will get $6.25M for youth substance prevention.

🧑‍🎓 State law has named TGH Behavioral Health Hospital as one of the first behavioral health teaching hospitals in Florida.

🤔 In yet another attempt to boost public image, Purdue has partnered with MMCAP Infuse to provide low-cost OUD treatment to incarcerated people.

💡 Many patients view relationships formed in group telehealth sessions as even better than those formed in traditional in-person consultations.

😅 Landmark Recovery will be allowed to operate addiction treatment facilities in Indiana again after reaching a settlement agreement with state regulators.

💰 The Biden administration will invest $46M+ in behavioral health, focusing on SUD treatment and recovery. 

🧑‍💼 Employers are pulling back from providing mental health benefits, at least according to Talkspace.

🎉 Alberta’s government is investing $148M to support a record-breaking expansion of child and youth mental health services. 

✅ The Joint Commission is launching a new accreditation program to standardize patient care practices and staff training at all rural health clinics. 

📈 Syra Health reported a 47% revenue growth YOY (largely thanks to its Population Health offering). 

📊 Talkspace reported a 36% revenue growth YOY and a 30% gross profit increase.

📝 Despite a 40% growth in revenue for Q1, ambient AI documentation startup Augmedix downgraded its full-year revenue outlook and stock fell 41%.

Expansions, Launches, & Partnerships

🫄 In the latest move towards a non-clinical workforce, FamilyWell launched an online Perinatal Behavioral Health Coach course.

☀️ Embark Behavioral Health announced a virtual Summer T.I.M.E. program to support teen mental health. 

❤️ Newport Healthcare launched a specialized substance use disorder treatment for teens and young adults.

🏛️ Release Recovery opened its first outpatient treatment facility in New York City. 

💊 Seattle will open a short-term recovery center for people who have overdosed on fentanyl or other drugs.

🤝 Tulip Hill Recovery, Louisville Addiction Center, and Lexington Addiction Center have merged to form Tulip Hill Healthcare.

☎️ Avel eCare will now offer virtual behavioral health services to people in crisis in North Dakota.

💻 Virtual telepsychiatry provider Concert Health has teamed up with the University of Washington on a new collaborative care program for SMIs.

Funding Rounds & Investor Moves

🎒 $14M for Backpack Health, a pediatric mental health startup using AI to help monitor clients’ emotions and match them with an appropriate therapist.

💲 Spectrum Behavioral Therapies (an ABA provider) has been acquired by California-based Optimal Investment Group.

👀 How new state laws could complicate behavioral health dealmaking.

👩‍💻 Investors are ‘cautiously optimistic’ about the state of the digital health market.

💰 Outpatient mental health provider CARE Counseling’s acquisition shows interest in outpatient mental health dealmaking is still strong, says BHB.

Studies & Opinion Pieces

💉 Starting injectable naltrexone within 5-7 days of seeking treatment is more effective than the standard method of within 10-15 days (clinical trial).

💡 Autism may be linked to cell danger response pathways that don’t shut off as they should during a child’s early development (study).

🍔 Autism-related characteristics and behavior appear to contribute to the manifestation and duration of anorexia (study).

💔 More than 320k American children lost a parent to drug overdose in the decade between 2011 and 2021 (study). 

💊 How to tackle the rural opioid epidemic with telehealth and mobile care (opinion).

🚨 Congress needs to close Medicare’s dangerous gaps in coverage for addiction treatment (opinion). 

That’s it for this week! See you next Wednesday with the latest headlines.

- Shân

P.S. Have you met Ryan? You should. He’s a wizard at behavioral healthcare marketing. And he’s offering two of our readers a free website audit this week. 

The first two of you to nab a spot on his calendar here are in.

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