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- 💸 Private equity shifts away from providers
💸 Private equity shifts away from providers
Plus, Brightside expands to teens, a rising interest in AI therapy, and a drop in opioid prescriptions
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Welcome to The Census, your weekly roundup of what matters in behavioral health care.
Lots of cool stuff to discuss today, including:
Healthcare IT as private equity’s new darling
All your latest news headlines in under two minutes
Let’s dive in.
- Shân
P.S. This mail is designed to be skim-read, so scan away!
Reading time: ~3.5 minutes.
On our radar
What we’re watching this week
💸 Investors are looking to healthcare IT
Private equity is shifting away from healthcare services — aka providers — and toward healthcare IT.
US data, six-month rolling average. Source: Google Trends
What’s happening: Regulatory uncertainties and limited exit opportunities are pushing investors to diversify their healthcare exposure away from direct care delivery, says Pitchbook.
So, investors are turning to healthcare IT.
This year, for the first time, the number of healthcare IT platform buyouts (25) was almost on par with healthcare services (28). And investment analysts say it’s only the beginning.
We expect [healthcare IT] to play a growing role in healthcare PE portfolios over the next few years.
This uptick is off the back of a very slow 2023 for healthcare IT dealmaking, illustrating how quickly investment trends can turn.
💡 Of note, analysts believe specialist utilization management, particularly for behavioral health care, is “an area of both growing need and growing technological opportunity.” We’ll keep you updated.
Let’s get your news headlines.
Catch up quick
This week’s top stories
Latest news
US data, six-month rolling average. Source: Google Trends
🩺 Patients are already turning to AI chatbots for medical advice and information, potentially at a rate underestimated by experts.
⚠️ An industrial chemical used in plastic products has been cropping up in illegal drugs from California to Maine, alarming health researchers.
💰 The US Department of Health and Human Services announced it will award $45M in grants to improve mental health and overdose crisis services.
📲 80% of teen and young adult fentanyl poisoning deaths can be traced to social media contacts — and TikTok and Meta aren’t doing enough to protect kids.
🤝 On a semi-related note, Snapchat, Meta, and TikTok partnered with the Mental Health Coalition to launch Thrive, which flags and securely shares info about content related to self-harm and suicide.
🏥 Signature Psychiatric Hospital has closed two locations in Kansas City citing the loss of a lease.
🚨 In a controversial move, British Columbia Premier David Eby announced people who are severely addicted and mentally ill will be placed in involuntary care.
👏 Independence Blue Cross expanded its covered behavioral health offerings to get members care faster, and give them a wider range of clinicians to choose from.
🏫 Nine more mental health classrooms in Alberta have opened this month as the local government makes progress on its promise to open 60 in total.
🛑 The naloxone vending machine program in Oklahoma has come to an abrupt end after it failed to deliver positive enough results.
🫶 Opioid overdose deaths are the lowest they’ve been in three years, but the pace is still far worse than before the pandemic.
💊 Prescriptions for simulants rose by 37% and antidepressants by 20%, while opioid prescriptions dropped by 17% from 2019 to 2022, per a JAMA study.
🥽 Highmark becomes the first commercial insurer to cover RelieVRx, an FDA-cleared virtual reality treatment for chronic low back pain.
😞 Multiple federal suicide prevention strategies haven’t stopped deaths from rising over the past two decades.
💻 CMS is allegedly planning oversight of third-party healthcare vendors in the wake of the Change Healthcare cyberattack
👪 The parent mental health crisis is particularly acute for those on Medicaid — and they need more support.
✊ Unsurprisingly, 330+ provider organizations have urged the White House and Congress to extend the pandemic-era telehealth prescribing flexibility.
💡 Hey, that’s cool: Circular Genomics launched a new test to predict whether a patient with depression will respond to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) treatment.
Expansions, launches, & partnerships
Source: LinkedIn
💻 Iris Telehealth launched two new technology-driven behavioral health solutions: a Virtual Clinic and a back-end AI assistant, Iris Insights.
🧒 Brightside Health now offers telemental health services for teens aged 13 to 17, including virtual IOPs for SUD and Crisis Care for elevated suicide risk.
🤝 Talkspace partnered with Amazon Health Services to help customers check their eligibility for, and enroll in, Talkspace’s mental health services.
🗺️ Rula Health, which matches patients with behavioral health providers, expanded its therapy services to all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
🏛️ A ‘unique’ Rural Behavioral Health Clinic is set to open at Minnesota State University thanks to a $5M donation from Blue Cross.
📈 Catalight will expand autism care access through Dr. Karen Bearss’ RUBI Program.
❤️ The HealthWell Foundation launched an Oncology Caregiver Behavioral Health Fund to provide $2k in copayment assistance for caregivers of cancer patients.
🎉 The Eating Recovery Center and Pathlight Mood and Anxiety Center expanded to accept Medicaid coverage for patients in Colorado.
🚢 Oceanic will now offer VIKAND’s mental health training programs to increase officers’ knowledge and understanding of mental health issues at sea.
🏥 The John Hopkins Howard County Medical Center Foundation launched a campaign to raise $3M to expand its behavioral health unit in Columbia, Md.
Funding rounds & investor moves
Just one this week, folks:
💰 Nirvana, a startup providing instant verification of insurance and accurate cost estimates to providers, raised $24M+.
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Studies & opinion pieces
📲 Patients who started treatment for OUD through a mobile app stayed with treatment at a greater rate than those who started in a physical clinic (study).
🧠 Unhealthy thinking patterns from childhood trauma play a key role in the severity of eating disorder symptoms (study).
🧒 How autism therapy’s continued evolution is pushing providers to deliver better and more varied services (opinion).
🦠 Specific inflammatory biomarkers may be associated with an increased risk of depression, anxiety, and stress-related disorders (study).
💡 What innovation looks like in the field of substance use disorder (opinion).
💊 People who take high doses of prescription amphetamines like Adderall and Vyvanse are at higher risk of psychosis or mania (study).
That’s it for this week! See you next Wednesday with the latest headlines.
- 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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