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Welcome to The Census, your biweekly roundup of what matters in behavioral health care.

Today, we’re breaking down:

• The growing demand for sleep support in behavioral healthcare

• All your latest news headlines in under two minutes

Let’s dive in.

- Shân

What we’re watching this week 

😴 Don’t snooze on sleep support

For the first time, sleep disorders have entered the national top five telehealth diagnostic categories. In parallel, consumer searches for specialized sleep disorder treatment options are climbing (graph below). 

Here’s our quick breakdown of the space.

We’ve all heard, ad nauseam, about sleep’s contribution to mental wellbeing. We’re not here to rehash the facts. 

But with sleep getting attention and mental health needs on the rise, programs that treat both may soon become key.

This is where we see opportunities.

1. Providing (niche) virtual treatment options. Sleep disorders are now in the national top five telehealth diagnostic categories, according to FAIR Health’s Monthly Telehealth Regional Tracker. Consumers clearly want virtual support and treatment options, especially for more niche issues like sleep anxiety.

2. Increasing the focus on sleep in existing behavioral health programs. When choosing a behavioral health provider for any disorder, the option of better, more focused sleep support may soon become something patients specifically look for. 

3. Partnering with sleep brands. Behavioral health providers could partner with sleep brands and/or sleep experts, to the benefit of all parties.

4. Launching sleep retreats. Search interest for sleep retreats is rising (y’all okay, Vermont?). There’s definitely room to market these from a mental health perspective — and maybe even get employee wellness schemes on board, considering the outsize impact sleep has on productivity.

Let’s get your news headlines. 

Catch up quick

This week’s top stories

Latest news

📱 988 hotline usage still varies widely by state, highlighting persistent gaps in mental health crisis response nearly three years after its launch.

💸 Retreat Behavioral Health’s downfall is almost complete, with its South Florida facility sold off in a global settlement between the company’s last partners and creditors.

🤑 A $7B+ settlement with Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family has been signed, effectively ending the family’s control of Purdue Pharma and prohibiting them from selling opioids in the US going forward.

🍄 Texas is set to become a leader in psychedelics research thanks to Rick Perry’s backing and $50M from the state (yep, the same state that’s contemplating banning THC).

😕 Behavioral health providers should brace for more potential Medicaid cuts that could negatively impact patient care.

🚀 Headspace is launching direct-to-consumer therapy — a first for the provider traditionally focused on the employer market.

⚠️ New evidence suggests that ChatGPT’s latest model may be contributing to severe psychological breakdowns in vulnerable users, with some cases ending in hospitalization or suicide.

🧸 Related, unfortunately: Mattel announced plans to incorporate ChatGPT into children’s toys (about this, what can we tell you that you aren’t already thinking?).

😳 New guidelines for Veterans Affairs hospitals could allow workers to decline to treat patients based on personal characteristics like political affiliation.

🚨 The Coalition of Autism Scientists is sounding the alarm on the NIH’s new $50M autism research proposal. 

🌿 Parents desperate for treatments say cannabis can help their children’s autism symptoms, as doctors urge caution around its use for ASD.

🧠 A newly reintroduced bill would permanently eliminate in-person requirements for Medicare telemental health.

🚔 Evoke Wellness has been fined $1.9M for using Google Ads and dodgy telemarketing tactics to impersonate treatment providers and trick patients. 

🎵 Spotify partnered with nonprofit Backline to launch a global hub of mental health resources for artists.

🛑 The House passed a bill to combat fentanyl trafficking — but it does not include increased funding for efforts to combat addiction and deaths.

👀 A Baltimore judge proposed reducing the city’s $266M opioid settlement to just $52M, saying that jurors attributed too much blame to the companies for the opioid crisis.

🫂 And, some good news: Making recovery a community affair has successfully slashed overdoses in Chesterfield County, Va. 

Looking for updates, trends, and success stories in mental health marketing?

Join our sister publication The Hype, sent every other Tuesday! 

Funding rounds & investor moves

🤖 Sword Health, which just launched an AI-powered personalized mental health solution called “Mind,” raised $40M.

🗣️ Ellipsis Health, a startup using vocal biomarkers to identify mental health disorders, raised $45M in a new Series A round.

Studies & opinion pieces

🍷 The US death rate from alcohol-related liver disease roughly doubled over the last two decades and was exacerbated by the pandemic (study).

💡 How to scale innovations in autism therapy (opinion). 

💦 Urine drug test data can help chart national overdose trends (study). 

🍔 A family navigator improves post-discharge treatment adherence among adolescents with anorexia nervosa (pilot study).

That’s it for this week! See you next time,

- Shân

P.S. Whenever you’re ready, here’s how we can help.

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