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

Today, we’re breaking down:

• The high cost of teen behavioral health care

• All your latest news headlines in under two minutes

Lots of good stuff this week. Let’s get to it.

- Shân

P.S. This mail is designed to be skim-read, especially if you’re busy (who isn’t).

Total reading time: ~4 minutes.

On Our Radar

What we’re watching this week 

🧠 Teens Incur the Highest Behavioral Health Costs

Per-member per-month spending is creeping up, but early interventions can offer better support.  

A new analysis of commercial healthcare spending data reveals payors spend 30%+ more on teens aged 15-19 than all other age groups.

• Their costs are driven by depression, anxiety, and autism diagnoses

• The per-member per-month (PMPM) spending of this cohort is at least 30% higher than any other

⚠️ Perhaps even more surprising is that payor spending on behavioral health care for kids and teens aged 5-19 is triple the amount (!) spent on their general medical care. 

Of course, this spending shows US kids are receiving behavioral health support (albeit not nearly enough).

And as we all know, payors will look for ways to lower these costs. Early intermediate options may hold some of the answers, to everyone’s benefit.

For example, behavioral outpatient care following a new mental health diagnosis can bring down medical costs by $3.3k+ per person over ~2 years, an Evernorth analysis shows.

• It seems there’s a reason providers are turning to IOPs and PHPs in droves, and gaining payor support

This brings us to our news headlines, led by — you guessed it — intermediate care. 

Catch Up Quick

This week’s top stories

Latest News

⏱️ Optum acquired outpatient behavioral health providers Refresh Mental Health and CARE Counseling in a bid to cut wait times and attract payors.

🏥 Similarly, Recovery Centers of America is integrating services to improve patient outcomes and prepare for alternative payment models.

👀 Meanwhile, Acadia is adding (even more) outpatient options and considering joint ventures as they too prioritize integrating service lines.

🍔 Acadia is also expanding eating disorder programming with a focus on trauma treatment through EMDR.

🤑 Virtual care is driving a rise in addiction treatment startup funding, says Crunchbase. 

🍄 In a blow to psychedelics (and a win for robust clinical trials), the FDA panel voted 10-to-1 against the first MDMA-based PTSD treatment yesterday.

🤯 Inpatient behavioral health services are reimbursed at an average of 34% less than the cost to provide them.

🧓 Behavioral health patients are a challenge to nursing homes and add to hospital discharge bottlenecks, but specialized units may help. 

💸 Autism therapy companies are looking to sale-leasebacks to unlock capital for growth, per BHB.

🫶 Federal agencies are acknowledging that total abstinence may not always be within reach when it comes to SUD treatment. 

🍷 Related: Under San Fransisco’s Managed Alcohol Program, people with severe AUD are housed in a former hotel and given metered doses of liquor.

🚬 Nicotine-like chemicals in American vapes may be more potent and addictive than nicotine.

🌿 Legal cannabis sales in Missouri have generated $19M for veterans, SUD treatment, and public defenders.

👀 Private equity owns 25% of mental health facilities in some states including Colorado, Texas, and North Carolina. 

🔎 Regulators may investigate UnitedHealth Group for “negligent” security practices amid the Change cyberattack.

🧒 Autism therapy needs to listen better to patients and families and provide more parental support and training, says Gracent’s CEO. 

☎️ San Francisco is connecting unhoused people with addiction medicine through nightly telehealth visits under a new pilot program.

🏥 A Mississippi hospital sends some patients awaiting mental health treatment to jail, with one doctor describing it as “unthinkable.”

🧑‍💼 Opioid addiction treatment provider Ophelia has added two new board members to specifically drive payor growth.

🔗 Behavioral health providers are turning to EHR vendors to support integrated care models, according to a KLAS report.

🏛️ The Biden administration announced the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic Medicaid demonstration program will expand to 10 new states.

💊 Senators are pushing for easier access to MOUDs by reducing prior authorizations and expanding community-based models.

📲 Lifeguard Digital Health announced that 100 lives have been saved through its overdose prevention apps.

🧑‍⚖️ A federal judge dismissed Florida’s challenge to a new Biden policy that bars states from cutting off Children’s Health Insurance Program coverage.

🧑‍💻 Change Healthcare, rather than providers, is responsible for notifying patients whose records were breached in the company’s massive hack.

🫄 The first pill for postpartum depression is working, but some patients still face barriers to accessing it.

🪖 Veterans won’t have to pay copays for their first three mental health appointments each year, thanks to a new exemption. 

💊 Texas is revamping its Narcan distribution program following delays and unpredictable supply.

📊 Collecting robust patient data can improve behavioral health equity, allow providers to target underserved populations, and aid payor negotiations.

Expansions, Launches, & Partnerships

🎉 STR Behavioral Health announced the opening of Cedar Creek, a new inpatient facility in Pennsylvania.

🧑‍💻 Ellipsis Health joined forces with Pega, an AI-based behavioral health screening and insight platform.

🧑‍🌾 North Carolina is set to get its 15th care farm, which uses nature and farming practices to help restore mental health for patients with SMIs. 

🤝 Aptar Digital Health and Iona Mind have partnered to deliver scalable mental health support to chronic disease patients.

🧑‍💼 Employee benefits specialist The Hartford has collaborated with Marvin Behavioral Health to offer mental health care to insurance customers. 

🧑‍🎓 AMFM Healthcare and Beck Institute have teamed up to train 200 mental health providers in Recovery-Oriented Cognitive Therapy (CT-R).

Funding Rounds & Investor Moves

🤑 Autism therapy giant Behavioral Innovations has been sold to Tenex Capital Management for $300M in the biggest deal of the year. 

💰 Addiction and mental health treatment provider T&R Recovery Group has acquired Origins Behavioral Healthcare, adding four locations to its portfolio.

🧑‍💻 Digital Therapeutics firm Akili will merge with Virtual Therapeutics in a $34M deal (just a month after Akili cut 46% of staff). 

🏫 TadHealth announced a $1.6M funding round to expand mental health services in schools.

💡 Alternative deal models including earn-outs and seller notes are rising as buyers and sellers look to bridge the valuation gap in behavioral health. 

🚨 California’s AB 3219, which would require PE firms to obtain approval for certain healthcare-related transactions, is one step closer to becoming law.

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Studies & Opinion Pieces

⛪ Increased attention to patients’ spiritual needs would improve US public health (study). Read our previous research on faith and behavioral health here. 

💔 The US addiction crisis is even worse than headlines can convey (opinion).

💡 Why the very things that made Walmart Health’s behavioral efforts unique ultimately led to its downfall (opinion). 

😓 The prevalence of PTSD among college students rose to 7.5% in 2022, more than double the rate five years earlier (study).

🍔 Ethical considerations for patients with eating disorders when deciding between in-person and virtual meetings (opinion). 

🫄 The mental health system is failing new mothers; here’s what needs to be done to support them (opinion). 

🧠 Placebo treatment can improve symptoms in some mental disorders, including SMIs (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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