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

This week, we have:

• A rise in botanical medicine 

• All your latest news headlines in under two minutes

Let’s dive in.

- Shân

P.S. We know it’s a tumultuous time in healthcare right now. We’ll continue to bring you factual news and analysis that matters. And maybe express our frustration through spicy memes.

What we’re watching this week 

🌱 RFK Jr.’s HHS could spark a boom in botanical mental health treatments

Supplement makers and alternative medicine practitioners hope to capitalize on Mr. Kennedy’s tenure as the nation’s top health official. But they’re not the only ones looking for plant-based solutions.

On Monday, the FDA cleared a cannabis-based autism treatment for phase 2 trials, meaning researchers can go ahead with a new 12-week study on 60 teen and young adult patients. 

We really don’t know if cannabinoids can treat the behavioral symptoms associated with ASD. That’s what this trial aims to (safely) find out. 

But it’s an interesting development given our new HHS secretary is particularly partial to plant-based and alternative health therapies. Only, he wants them to be available without FDA scrutiny and control. 

So, it’s reasonable to assume that regardless of the new trial outcomes, various players peddling alternative cannabis-based autism treatments could thrive under Kennedy. 

Not to mention those punting natural cures for a range of other mental health issues. 

We’re all for widely accessible, evidence-based treatments, including plant-based, just to be clear. We’re just reporting on the ~various happenings.~

Let’s get to your news headlines.

Catch up quick

This week’s top stories

Latest news

⚠️ There has been a ‘sudden and dramatic uptick’ in heroin and methamphetamine use among fentanyl users.

📈 Demand for board-certified behavior analysts continues to outstrip supply as BCBA job postings soar by almost 60%. 

✨ LifeMD has expanded into the behavioral health market and now offers teletherapy, psychiatry, and mental health medication management.

🖤 The fatal drug overdose rate fell 4% nationwide from 2022 to 2023, per new CDC data — but grew notably out West and up in Alaska.

🎉 Maryland has expanded behavioral and mental health care coverage for families on Medicaid.

📵 Medicaid beneficiaries are less likely to use telehealth to access SUD care than those enrolled in Medicare Advantage or commercial insurance.

🎒 4.5k middle- and high-school students now have access to Sonny, a hybrid human-AI mental health ChatBot for teens.

👀 Big Pharma is going all in to position itself as an ally to the MAHA movement, but Mr.Kennedy doesn’t seem to be buying it.

🍔 A guided self-help CBT treatment app for eating disorder patients has shown great promise in a pilot study on college campuses.

🗣️ Talkspace reported a 54% increase in payer revenue, leading to its first profitable year, even as its consumer revenue continues to fall.

😓 Teladoc is under investigation for using questionable accounting techniques to inflate profitability and cash flows.

💔 Only a quarter of Medicare recipients treated for OUD with buprenorphine stick with the meds, and only a third get the behavioral health support they need.

😟 In very sad news, a patient has allegedly killed another patient at a Landmark Recovery facility in Louisville, Kentucky.

🏡 A 450k-sq ft Wellness Village will soon provide a continuum of behavioral health care, from urgent treatment to supportive housing, in Mead Valley.

🔎 The California Legislature introduced a bill to increase scrutiny over private equity transactions in healthcare, after a similar bill was vetoed last year.

😮 The percentage of psychiatrists billing traditional Medicare has dropped by almost 17% since 2014.

✅ New Mexico’s Senate voted to pass a trio of bills meant to rebuild the state’s behavioral health system after its dismantling over a decade ago.

💡 NASHP released a new report on how states have been future-proofing their behavioral health workforce.

🤔 Hmm, that’s interesting: The biggest reason for healthcare deals breaking down in 2024 was legal and regulatory issues uncovered during diligence that became worse.

Expansions, launches, & partnerships

⌚ SOBRsafe and Orbiit partnered to ‘revolutionize alcohol recovery’ using AI and wearable tech.

🧑‍💼 Carisk Partners launched an enhanced Behavioral Health program to meet evolving workplace mental health needs and regulatory shifts.

🧒 Lighthouse Autism Center expanded its North Carolina footprint with three new centers in Hickory, Statesville, and Monroe.

👪 Family Care Center opened a new outpatient mental health clinic in Louisville.

🍔 Inner Haven Wellness launched a new virtual PHP and expanded its virtual IOP for adults with eating disorders.

🤝 Community Health Network and Lifepoint Behavioral Health partnered to build and operate new inpatient hospitals in central Indiana.

Funding rounds & investor moves

💰 Frontera Health landed $32M to fix autism care at scale, using AI — starting with rural America.

💲 Sonar Health raised $2.4M in pre-seed funding for its AI-backed youth mental health startup. 

🤝 Autism Spectrum Interventions acquired Quality Behavior Solutions and rebranded as Alongside ABA.

🍓 Devereux Advanced Behavioral Health acquired Strawberry Fields, a mental health, autism, & intellectual disability care provider (both are nonprofits).

🤖 Eleos raised $60M to ‘transform behavioral health with AI agents,’ bringing the firm’s total funding to $120M.

🎮 XRHealth acquired digital therapeutics company RealizedCare to expand further into digital behavioral health treatment.

📈 PESP recorded a 47%+ increase in the number of behavioral health PE deals between 2023 and 2024; read the full report here (nothing super interesting or we would have summarized it for you).

Thinking of hosting an event for behavioral healthcare execs? Don’t want to make a fool of yourself with crappy attendance and a washout experience?

Well, obviously.

Studies & opinion pieces

🧠 Medicaid beneficiaries with autism are ten times more likely to have an ADHD diagnosis than adults in the general population (study).

🎨 Related: Enhanced creativity in autistic people is likely to be driven by co-occurring ADHD (study).

😮 An AI model can predict schizophrenia and bipolar progression using EHR data (study).

💡 Clinicians vary widely in how they tailor ABA treatment intensity, highlighting the need for clearer standards and better training (study)

💊 Mixing ADHD meds with opioids may drive higher opioid intake (study).

⏰ It’s time for health plans to hold behavioral health providers accountable for outcomes (opinion).

👀 There’s a dark side to AI in Medicare Advantage, as the aggressive pursuit of value-based payment optimization starts to eclipse value-based care (opinion).

That’s it for this week! See you soon,

- Shân

P.S. You can email me here if you want to share any feedback, or let me know about a business I should be featuring.

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