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

Top stories this week: 

• On Our Radar: How providers are generating success with stability.

• Catch Up Quick: The latest news headlines in under two minutes.

• New Studies: Including how PTSD affects eating disorders.

Let’s dive in.

- Shân

P.S. It’s been a rough week for PE-backed healthcare as ‘playbooks fail’ and states push back against consolidation. More under Investor Moves below. 

Reading time: ~4.5 minutes.

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On Our Radar

What we’re watching this week 

🔎 Predictability Is Key to Behavioral Health Success 

Providers must generate stability within a constantly changing industry to attract capital — and staff. 

Diverse patient pools, reimbursement volatility, and the constant evolution of illicit substances are just some of the reasons why behavioral health is in a continual state of flux.

So for providers, creating stability is key to success.

Here are two ways they’re doing it. 

1. Prioritizing a shift to value-based care

A consistent approach to reimbursement will give clinics the flexibility to hire the kinds of physicians and deploy people in roles that are not necessarily covered under fee-for-service — leading to better retention and patient outcomes. 

➡️ However, VBC requires a balance between standardization and flexibility:

• Some argue that “standards we can all get behind” are key to being taken seriously as an industry

• Others caution that these standards must still be flexible enough to “leave openness for patient and provider choice” 

➡️ Still, providers say they’ll shoulder risks, which creates a big opportunity for payers:

The bottom line: Providers are ready to drive VBC uptake and absorb risk, but they’ll also need to provide outcomes-based data to payers and employers that are specific to their patient populations. 

💡 The real opportunity here is creating software that follows up with patients to track whether they’re holding down a job, staying out of the ER, paying taxes, staying sober, etc. 

Whoever figures this out will make all the money, because insurance companies would incentivize the heck outta it.

2. Investing in lab services

For SUD clinics this is especially important, given the constant shift in patterns and levels of drug use.

Ideal Option’s CEO Tim Kilgallon says their investments in lab services provide the critical insights needed to keep up with the changes and give personalized care to patients. 

It also offers vital market intelligence that typically comes after significant delays from local and federal law enforcement agencies.

• For example, Ideal Option has added xylazine to their standard drug testing panel — which hospitals don’t even have the machinery to test for yet

In a nutshell: To create predictability, providers must stay ahead of industry changes by investing in services and data analytics — either through in-house capacity or strategic partnerships.

Let’s get to your news headlines.

Catch Up Quick

This week’s top stories

Latest News

🏛️ UpHealth’s $110M legal victory may support its (slightly chaotic) transition from a digital health SPAC to addiction treatment provider.

💸 Behavioral health clinicians are reimbursed at rates 22% lower than medical and surgical clinicians, and are 3.5x more likely to be out-of-network.

🧑‍⚖️  Walgreens will pay $110M (but admit no liability) to the city of Philadelphia to end its opioid litigation case.

💊 Adderall abuse could become another opioid crisis amid rising prescriptions fueled by social media and telehealth, cautions the DEA.

👀 All-in-one models and VBC are growing in autism therapy — and those who don’t embrace this trend may be left (far) behind. 

🧑‍💼 Speaking of the autism industry, two high-profile CEOs stepped down this week: BlueSprig’s Jason Owen, and NeurAbilities’ Kathleen Stengel.

🏙️ Jersey City wants to provide free drug testing strips and Narcan with a 24-hour health kiosk.

☎️ The Joint Commission will launch a new accreditation program for healthcare organizations that exclusively provide telehealth services.

🏥 A Western Colorado psychiatric hospital has “less than 30 days’ cash on hand” before it must close.

🍔 Not all unusual eating habits in neurodivergent people are disorders, but those with EDs require nuanced care. 

🇨🇳 The Chinese government is allegedly helping fuel the US opioid crisis as they continue to subsidize the production of illicit fentanyl materials.

💃 Doctors are prescribing ballroom dancing, nature walks, and gardening to improve patient health and well-being.

🧑‍⚖️ A proposed new bill would enable children with Medicaid to access physical and behavioral healthcare appointments on the same day.

🚫 The FTC has (unsurprisingly) banned Monument from sharing patient health information with third parties for advertising purposes.

🔎 The FDA has begun a rolling review of suzetrigine, the non-opioid painkiller bidding for US approval by end June.

😞 Proposed changes to state Medicaid plans would drop three large health plans run by nonprofit children’s hospitals and affect 1.8M Texans.

🧒 Employees may want behavioral health benefits for their kids — and favor companies that provide them. 

🛌 Palliative approaches to psychiatric care are happening informally worldwide despite not being an officially recognized specialty.

🎁 Small gift cards for submitting negative urine drug tests can be a key tool to stop stimulant addiction.

💡 Useful insights on the enforcement by private litigants of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, from Ryan S. v. UnitedHealth Group.

Funding Rounds & Investor Moves

💰 Lumeris, a value-based care company, landed $100M. 

🤑 PE firm Avesi Partners has acquired SUD provider First Steps Recovery.

💲 Patient-management company ABOUT Healthcare has acquired AI analytics platform Edgility to offer patient progression solutions. 

🎉 Cigna will invest $27M+ in youth mental health via a new initiative spanning the next three years.

📉 PE-owned health care saw bankruptcy surge as the ‘playbook failed’ — and more distress is expected, says Bloomberg. 

✋ Unsurprisingly, more than a dozen states are pushing back against PE-backed consolidation of medical businesses.

🧑‍💻 When it comes to digital health investing it’s feast or famine for behavioral providers — driving startups to make tough choices, BHB reports. 

Expansions, Launches, & Partnerships

🧠 Headspace is the latest firm to jump on the behavioral health coaching trend with D2C chat-based mental health coaches.

🚬 Pelago, a digital addiction provider, announced a new cannabis use disorder treatment program.

🏛️ Turnwell Mental Health opened a new facility in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.

🪖 Bel Aire Recovery Center has expanded its services for military & veteran treatment by fully contracting with Tricare.

✍️ Elevance Health has inked two massive state contracts worth ~$740M this year.

Tech & AI

🤔 People are training gen AI to be mental health therapists using patient-therapist transcripts (a reminder of this opinion piece is useful, if not necessary, here).

⚠️ Related (unfortunately): WHO’s new health AI chatbot S.A.R.A.H. gets many medical questions wrong. 

💻 Innovaccer unveiled its AI-powered Healthcare Experience Platform designed to boost patient engagement and revenue growth. 

📊 Why the shift toward VBC requires a thoughtful approach to population health management and robust analytics strategies.

New Studies & Opinion Pieces

🍔 A case for integrating self-compassion interventions targeting shame and self-criticism into eating disorder treatment (meta-analysis).

🧠 Complex PTSD is more common than PTSD alone in individuals seeking treatment for eating disorders, and is linked to greater ED severity (study).

🚬 Recreational marijuana laws do not increase harder drug use, drug treatment admissions, or violent crimes — and may even decrease OUD (study).

🤯 Children born to women who received antiseizure medication valproate while pregnant were 2.7x more likely to be diagnosed with autism (study).

📞 Telehealth is associated with a 1.6% increase in healthcare spending (study).

🔮 The future of behavioral and physical health integration, and the lessons learned so far (opinion).

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

- Shân

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