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Seriously, Aon, you think weight loss drugs save money?

By AL LEWIS

Last month Aon, the major benefits consulting firm, released a “study” claiming:

A significant opportunity to reduce healthcare costs for employers and enhance overall workforce health through a comprehensive obesity management program that includes GLP-1 medications.

This, of course, is the opposite of what most researchers have shown.  And in the immortal words of the great philosophers Dire Straits: “Two men say they’re Jesus, one of them must be wrong.” We’ll shortly see who’s wrong (um, meaning about weight loss drugs) when we dive into the study in a minute. But first, let’s review Aon’s previous analyses. 

A brief history of Aon

Aon claimed that Accolade saved 8%, but it looks like they must coincidentally have been absent both on the day that the biostatistics professor explained how control groups work, and also on the day the fifth-grade math teacher explained how averages work. 

Then, they claimed that Lyra – which is a mental health company – achieved the following non-mental improvements in the set of patients who had at least one mental health encounter with one of their “220,000 high-quality providers”:

§  A 30% reduction in non-mental health-related ER visits

§  A 30% reduction in generic drug spending

§  A 20% reduction in specialty drug spending

Thanks in part to starting the y-axis at $4000 to improve the optics, Aon also revealed that Lyra achieved a very high “efficiency ratio”:

A graph of a number of people AI-generated content may be incorrect.

I can’t object to that finding because – despite three decades in this field, about 100 articles/interviews/quotes/citations including the Wall Street Journal, two trade-bestselling books and one Harvard Business School case study – I still don’t know what an “efficiency ratio” is, other than that has nothing to do with comparing participants to non-participants in a mental health study. Apparently an “efficiency ratio” in healthcare measures how quickly a hospital turns over its inventory. So Aon’s use of the term recalls the immortal words of the great philosopher Bob Uecker: “Juuussst a bit outside.”

When publicly and privately asked to explain any of these things, Aon clammed up. That was likely wise on their part.

Continue reading…

Raj Singh, Accolade

Earlier this month I caught up with Raj Singh, the CEO of Accolade. The “navigation” company is publicly traded and now offering its own telehealth, primary care & second opinions as well as helping patients access both digital health services and brick & mortar health systems. How is Accolade dealing by both offering primary care and helping patients manage through complex care situations? And why isn’t this available to everyone, yet? Raj told me how it works and what the likely future will be, including work with health plans, and how Accolade is on a path to a $1b in revenue in 5 years.–Matthew Holt

Quickbite Interviews: Accolade

I was at the AHIP conference in Vegas late last month and caught up with a number of CEOs & execs for some quick bite interviews — around 5 mins getting (I hope) to the gist of what they & their companies are up to. I am dribbling them out–Matthew Holt

Next up is Kristin Herrera, EVP, Accolade.

WTF Health: Accolade Navigates Itself into New Territory: CEO on Personalized Healthcare & Tech Infrastructure

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Healthcare navigator Accolade (NASDAQ:ACCD) is on the move. Not only are they now cruising in care delivery territory with two new primary care/mental healthcare offerings that let them personally guide their 9M members further into the healthcare system, BUT they’re also starting to talk more and more about their tech infrastructure and the “operating system” they’ve built to power that healthcare GPS with shared data and access.

CEO Rajeev Singh stops by to walk us through the strategy behind both sides of this (especially interesting when you consider his tech startup background in the context of those “operating system” statements) and why Accolade launched its own new category (personalized healthcare) as a framework for talking about the new course they’re charting.

We get into the September debut of Accolade Care, which bundles primary care and mental health in a per-employee-per-month model, and Accolade One, which wraps the full Accolade ecosystem around the Care product in a value-based model. At-risk models seem to be rising in popularity these days, and I get Rajeev’s perspective on why Accolade chose to go-to-market with one of those…and one that falls into the usual PEPM structure.

More interesting to me, however, is this whole “operating system” thing and how it’s playing out behind-the-scenes to strengthen integration across the businesses Accolade has acquired (Health Reveal being the most recent) and point solutions its partnering with like Virta, Headspace Health, Sword Health, RxSavings Solutions, and Carrot Fertility. The “purpose-built” architecture Rajeev describes sounds like it’s not only giving Accolade what it needs to better manage population health outcomes within its own offerings but that it, in and of itself, could be a new offering for partners who don’t want to build a tech platform themselves.

New directions explored…next moves discussed…AND Raj’s six-year CEO Anniversary celebrated! Watch now.

#Healthin2Point00, Episode 202 | Virta, Seqster, Kaia, Capsule & Accolade acquires PlushCare

On Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I talk about TDOC earnings before getting into today’s deals. First, Virta Health scores $133 million in a round led by Tiger Global for its keto diabetes reversal program. Seqster raises $12 million in its Series A, and there are some interesting investors in this one. MSK startup Kaia Health raises $75 million, bringing its total to $123 million. Online pharmacy Capsule raises $300 million, bringing its total to $570 million. Finally Accolade acquires virtual primary care platform PlushCare in a $450 million deal. —Matthew Holt

THCB Gang Episode 52, Thursday April 29

Thursday’s #THCBGang was another with a special guest. Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) was joined by regulars, employer health expert Jennifer Benz (@jenbenz); patient safety expert and all around wit Michael Millenson (@MLMillenson); WTF Health host & Health IT girl Jessica DaMassa (@jessdamassa); & Consumer advocate & CTO of Carium Health, Lygeia Ricciardi (@Lygeia).

Our special guest was Shantanu Nundy @DrNundy who is Chief Medical Officer of Accolade and more importantly author of new book Care After Covid. We dug into the question about what the post-covid health care system will look like, while I let slip why I’m grumpy Accolade just paid $450m for Plushcare! (You have to wait for the very end for that!)

Then video is up below. If you’d rather listen, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes  & Spotify channels.

#Healthin2Point00, Episode 178 | Talkspace IPO, Accolade buys 2ndMD & more

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess admires my new COVID-safe ski gear, designed to provide the right amount of coverage to the right part of your face at the right time. On Episode 178, Jess asks me about Talkspace finally getting its SPAC IPO together with a $1.4 billion valuation – this was a long time coming. Accolade acquires 2nd.MD for $460 million, Dina Health raises $7 million in a Series A, and Komodo Health raises $44 million and acquires the consulting business from Mavens. —Matthew Holt

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 132 | Accolade IPO, Somatus, NexHealth, Tatch & more

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I cover some big news! Accolade has filed its IPO, so on Episode 132 I give my take on this health care navigation service. We also cover Somatus getting $64 million for chronic kidney disease care, NexHealth raising $15 million, Tatch raising $4.25 million for sleep apnea diagnosis, Simply Speak raising a $1.1 million seed round, and optimize.health raising $3.5 million for its remote monitoring platform. —Matthew Holt

Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 110a | Trump at HIMSS20, K Health, and Accolade

Today on Health in 2 Point 00, Jess is singing as we are finally back with a two-part episode to cover the deals over the past couple weeks! On part A of Episode 110, Jess and I begin with Trump as he is set to speak at HIMSS next week. K Health raises $48 million in its Series C round to focus development on AI-powered primary care. Accolade files for a $100 million IPO and the telehealth language service platform Cloudbreak Health raises $10 million. Finally, Q Bio raises $40 million in Series B funding aiming to open additional centers and enhance the digital health platform. -Matthew Holt

THCB Spotlights: Todd Clardy, EVP Marketing at Accolade

Today on THCB Spotlights, Matthew interviews Todd Clardy who is the EVP of Marketing at Accolade. Accolade is a company well-known for being in employee/patient advocacy. They’ve created an advocacy model that focuses on creating an outstanding member experience and supporting patients through their whole journey, whether it’s an acute or chronic condition or helping people maintain their health and wellness. Where do Amazon, Google and Haven fit into this space? Find out how many people have got this and how Accolade will be expanding going forward.