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Minding the Competition: Ginger’s Karan Singh & Russell Glass on Digital Mental Health Investments

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By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Digital Mental Health startups continue to scale up — in customers, revenues, and investments — as the covid19 pandemic wears on. One of these companies, Ginger, has tripled its revenue this past year, expanded its client base to count more than 200 health plans and self-insured employers, and, for good measure, just added a fresh $50M Series D to their coffers. How much more money can investors put into digital mental health startups? Are things “frothy” in this space, or is investment just “catching up” to meet a latent demand that’s just really been brought to light? And, what is one of this category’s leaders planning to do now that they’re extra flush with cash? (Don’t forget, they’re sitting on a $35M round that closed late 2019…)

Ginger’s co-founder & COO Karan Singh and CEO Russell Glass join us to weigh in on the mental healthcare market’s state-of-play, including the buzz around their own business as both a potential acquisition target and a potential acquirer of additional behavioral health tech. We cover everything from investment to healthcare incumbent’s recent cries for more clinical validation, but my favorite part of this whole interview is when we start talking about the competition and tackle Lyra Health’s recent $100M raise and $1.1B valuation. Tune in around the 15:55-minute mark for some very DETAILED competitive analysis about Lyra-versus-Ginger from Ginger’s own CEO.

As this market gets more crowded, competition heats up, and healthcare consumers receive the benefit of more solutions to access at lower prices, Karan and Russ also help me speculate on what’s ahead, including whether or not they think we’ll see a “digital mental health equivalent” of a massive game-changing-market-moving deal like we saw when Teladoc merged with Livongo to shake up of both the virtual care and chronic condition management spaces.

Kids & Mental Health: Brightline Aims to “Grow Up” Pediatric Behavioral Health Care with Tech

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By JESSICA DAMASSA

Despite the fact that kids make up 20% of our national patient population and that their parents are likely just the tech-savvy market of health consumers that most digital health companies are targeting with their own virtual care solutions, very little has been done to use technology to ‘transform’ the way that they take care of their kids. One of the founders hoping to push this market into a growth spurt is Naomi Allen, co-founder & CEO of pediatric behavioral health company Brightline.

From seed to Series A in just 8 months ($25M total funding), Brightline is already looking to scale out its full-stack clinical model to help tackle the behavioral health issues that are often under-diagnosed and under-treated in kids. Naomi says that 75% of all severe mental illness manifests before age 14, but that only 1 in 5 kids will ever even get a behavioral health diagnosis. And more shocking? Of those that are diagnosed, only 1 in 5 of those kids will ever even receive any care.

The supply-and-demand equation is off — stymied not only by a clinician shortage, but by literally poor reimbursement from health plans concerned about the lack of quality metrics, measurements, and processes in pediatric behavioral health despite the prevalence of those kinds of quality guidelines around adult mental health care.

So, how is Brightline going to fix this? Technology, clinicians, coaches. A full-stack clinical model with a “scaffolding” of support for parents built around it using telehealth, digital tools, and, for those health plans, metrics. Tune in to find out more about their business model, what Brightline’s kids are saying, and how you can find their services yourself if you think your child might need help.

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“Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech Conference” Matthew Holt & Jessica DaMassa’s Long, Exhaustive & Boring Overview

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Matthew Holt and Jessica DaMassa gave a talk at the “Going Digital: Behavioral Health Tech Conference” on June 17, 2020. They spoke about how technology is evolving the mental health space, along with their thoughts on where the future of the industry is headed.

Jess & Matthew first start off with their “Health in 2 Point 00” segment, discussing all of the funding deals in the mental health space, from Headspace to Mindstrong raising money in Q1, to Kaiser rolling out MyStrength to its members.

Then they jump into a deeper dive segment, where they discuss how the money is being distributed in the mental health space, and how startups are coming up with creative solutions to package their services. Some mental health companies are wrapping solutions into other digital health platforms that already manage chronic conditions, like Livongo & Omada, others are working to directly address and treat mental health issues, and some are developing digital therapeutic solutions to manage mental health problems. As this part of the industry grows, Matthew & Jess predict how the mental health tech space will change & develop with increasing demand, more investments, and a lot more innovative tools to serve the population’s needs.

Zoya Khan is the EIC of The Health Care Blog & a Strategy Manager at SMACK.health

Provide Emotional Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for Physicians Facing Psychological Trauma From the COVID-19 Crisis

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By SUZAN SONG MD, MPH, PhD

The U.S. now has the highest number of COVID-related deaths in the world, with exhausted, frightened physicians managing the front lines. We need not only medical supplies but also emotional personal protective equipment (PPE) against the psychological burden of the pandemic.

As a psychiatrist, my role in COVID-19 has included that of a therapist for my colleagues. I helped start Physician Support Line, a peer-to-peer hotline for physicians staffed by more than 500 volunteer psychiatrists. Through the hotline and social media, physicians are revealing their emotional fatigue. One doctor shared her sense of powerlessness when she couldn’t provide comfort but instead had to watch her young patient with COVID-19 die alone from behind a glass window. Another shared his sorrow after his 72-year-old patient died by suicide. She was socially isolated and didn’t want to be a burden on anyone if she contracted COVID-19. An internist felt deep distress and alarm that her hospital was quickly running out of ventilators and had 12 codes in 24 hours. 

Through a brief survey I conducted across the U.S., 269 physicians reported moderate to severe symptoms of anxiety (53%), depression (43%), and insomnia (16%). About 46% wanted to see or would consider seeing a mental health clinician for severe anxiety (30%), not feeling like themselves (27%), or being unhappy (21%). These are all similar statistics to the front line health care workers in Wuhan. 

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Leading Mental Health Platform on DTx Reimbursement, Scaling | Ken Cahill, SilverCloud Health

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By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Digital mental health platform SilverCloud Health is the digital-therapeutic-of-choice for mental health services in the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) and serves nearly 250 healthcare organizations around the world, racking up 1.5 million therapy hours and 5 million clinical interactions. CEO Ken Cahill stops by to catch us up on SilverCloud Health’s impressive clinical outcomes and how he’s tackling challenges around reimbursement that are common for many digital therapeutics startups. His unique approach (spoiler alert: he partners with providers to approach payers for exception codes) may give some inspiration to those in a similar situation, but tune in for Ken’s full explanation and details on how the company plans to double over the next year.

Filmed at Frontiers Health in Berlin, Germany, November 2019.

Solving the ‘Supply Side’ of Scaling up Behavioral Health Care | Russell Glass, CEO, Ginger

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BY JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

The ‘virtual-care-for-behavioral-health’ space is getting a bit crowded these days, particularly as demand for such services reach new heights among patients. Russell Glass, CEO of health tech startup, Ginger (formerly known as Ginger.io) thinks his company has solved the supply-and-demand imbalance with their unique model that offers on-demand coaching, video therapy & psychiatry, and self-guided content by a range of different mental health care providers. Trained behavioral health coaches serve as the front-line of Ginger’s service, then act as care coordinators to bring in fully-licensed therapists and psychiatrists as needed. With 60 enterprise clients, double-digit patient engagement rates, and outcomes beating standard of care rates, Ginger’s got traction — and also cash. The company’s raised more than $70 million, having closed a Series C (with a follow on) in late 2019. Russ details scale up plans AND answers the question that all you health tech pundits are no doubt dying to ask: what happened to the ‘.io’?!

Filmed at HLTH 2019 in Las Vegas, October 2019.

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A Clinically Validated Game Teaching Mental Health Coping Strategies | Swatee Surve, Litesprite

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By JESSICA DAMASSA, WTF HEALTH

How can helping a cartoon fox also help your mental health? Enter Socks the Fox and Sinasprite, a world exploration game that teaches players evidence-based treatments and coping methods for anxiety and depression. How does it work? Litesprite CEO Swatee Surve explains that players are charged with helping Socks the Fox become a Zen master (of course) and, in doing so, work through a series of challenges and exercises that teach coping mechanisms that range from journaling to diaphragmatic breathing. With its super-sticky storyline (Socks is adorable) the clinically validated game offers a new, upbeat way to bring tech and game theory into the way we treat mental health disorders.

Filmed at Bayer G4A Signing Day in Berlin, Germany, October 2019.

Apply to Pilot your Tech and Transform Mental Health Services in California!

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SPONSORED POST

By CATALYST @ HEALTH 2.0

According to the California Health Care Foundation, from 2012-2014, nearly 20% of Californian adults who sought mental health treatment did not receive it. It is believed that these figures may even be understated, as The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has cited that nearly 60% of American adults with mental illness do not receive any treatment. Unmet mental health needs in California are attributed to a lack of access to appropriate services and providers, as well as the cost of care, a factor that is often exacerbated by a lack of health insurance.

While traditional mental health services play an important role in supporting those in need, novel technologies can complement standard care delivery and provide individuals and communities with more accessible and optimized mental health services that focus on prevention, early intervention, family support, and social connectedness.

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Pilot Your Technology with Help@Hand

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SPONSORED POST

By CATALYST @ HEALTH 2.0

According to the California Health Care Foundation, from 2012-2014, nearly 20% of Californian adults who sought mental health treatment did not receive it. It is believed that these figures may even be understated, as The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has cited that nearly 60% of American adults with mental illness do not receive any treatment. Unmet mental health needs in California are attributed to a lack of access to appropriate services and providers, as well as the cost of care, a factor that is often exacerbated by a lack of health insurance.

While traditional mental health services play an important role in supporting those in need, novel technologies can complement standard care delivery and provide individuals and communities with more accessible and optimized mental health services that focus on prevention, early intervention, family support, and social connectedness. 

The Help@Hand Project is a California statewide collaborative project to bring technology-based mental health solutions to the public mental health system through a highly innovative “suite” of digital solutions. The project aims to expand access to mental health services by engaging and treating individuals that are underserved in the current traditional care delivery model. With technology becoming an integral part of everyday life, the collaborative hopes to leverage familiar devices as means to connect and better serve those in need. This Help@Hand project will utilize applications on smartphones, tablets, digital devices, or computers as a tool to engage, support and give access to treatment using innovative virtual engagement strategies. Focus areas include:

  1. Peer Chat and Digital Therapeutics
  2. Virtual Evidence Based Therapy Utilizing an Avatar
  3. Passive Data Collection for Early Detection and Intervention
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Health in 2 Point 00, Episode 93 | Ginger, VillageMD, & Health Recovery Solutions

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The drought is over! On Episode 93 of Health in 2 Point 00, Jess and I talk deals, deals, deals. Ginger, which provides digital mental health services, raises $35 million and is growing quite fast; VillageMD, one of numerous companies who are trying to figure out a new way to do primary care, raises $100 million; Health Recovery Solutions, which does remote patient monitoring, gets $10 million. In other news, Livongo’s stock price collapsed a little bit, but it was crazy when it first came out so now prices are more “normal”; uBiome files for bankruptcy, and Tula Health’s $2.5 million raise gets quite possibly the best press release we’ve ever seen (you’ve got to hear this). —Matthew Holt

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