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Headspace Health Merger Update: First Look at How Ginger-Headspace Combo is Really Going to Market

By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH

Headspace Health CEO Russell Glass says the merger-of-equals between on-demand mental health care provider, Ginger, and consumer meditation app, Headspace, is starting its upward trajectory on the “merger J-curve” and this monster 30-minute chat gets into the how-and-why.

We start out talking about the company’s recent acquisition of chatbot-based self-care app Sayana, but quickly turn to the integration of Headspace and Ginger and where things stand in terms of bringing those offerings together after three months of operationalizing. A combined vision and set of values have been launched with all 900 employees, and Russ says its enterprise clients (there are now 3,500 of those) are just weeks away from getting a fully-integrated platform that proves reporting for both Headspace and Ginger, allows launch from a single eligibility file, and offers communication that spans both service lines.

What’s “extra” in all this – and gives us a real glimpse of where Headspace Health is headed in terms of positioning itself to health plans and employers as standout from the Lyra Health / Quartet Health / Modern Health pack – comes out when Russ is describing the company’s partnership with Blue Shield of California at the 15:25-minute mark. The plan’s members can now access Headspace Health’s full-spectrum of services (meditation to therapy) via Blue Shield of California’s Wellvolution platform, which provides intelligent intake, smart patient routing, ongoing measurement and adjustment of services, and the ultimate ability to help prove-out mental health care’s connection to the reduction of downstream healthcare costs over time. As Russ says, “All of this is part of a long-term vision for what this could mean to a broader population, not just those who may need acute care, but to think about the entire population and how you pull the cost out of healthcare by managing behavioral health in a smart way.”

The big finish to this BIG conversation is Russ’s take on what’s ahead for both Headspace Health AND the digital mental health care market in 2022. Tune-in around the 20-minute mark to start this segment off with the IPO question that I never get answered, then lots of detail on where Headspace Health is looking to acquire and expand, what he thinks the headline story will be when it comes to the business of mental healthcare this year, and which patient population will rise to the top in terms of mental healthcare need.

The Intersection of 911 and 988: Decriminalizing Mental Health Crises

By BEN WHEATLEY

Effective July 2022, a new three-digit telephone number (988) will become the number to call in the case of mental health emergencies. Currently, 911 serves as the default number for people to call, placing the acutely mentally ill on a direct track toward police involvement. The new system is meant to ensure that every person experiencing a mental health crisis will receive a mental health response instead—help, not handcuffs.

In November 2021, 15 prominent organizations including NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) and Well Being Trust joined together to reimagine what a crisis response system might look like. Their Consensus Approach included the response to mental health crises, cases of suicidal behavior, and instances of substance use disorder. They argued that “Without a systems approach to transformation, simply implementing a new number to call will have little impact on those who are in need.” 

The Consensus Approach detailed seven critical pillars upon which a new crisis response system could be based, including Equity and Inclusion, Integration and Partnership, and Standards for Care. Pillar #4 stated that “Law enforcement should take a secondary role in crisis response.” This, they said, would be “a paradigm shift” that recognizes mental health conditions as “matters of health care, not criminal justice.” 

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THCB Gang Episode 79, Thursday Jan 20 — 1pm PT- 4pm ET

Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang at 1pm PT 4pm ET Thursday for an hour of topical and sometime combative conversation on what’s happening in health care and beyond will be: Queen of all employer benefits Jennifer Benz (@Jenbenz);  fierce patient activist Casey Quinlan (@MightyCasey); Suntra Modern Recovery CEO JL Neptune (@JeanLucNeptune); and, making a rare but welcome appearance, digital health guru Fard Johnmar (@fardj).

Video will be live (and then preserved) below. If you’d rather listen to the episode, the audio is available from Friday as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels. 

Interview & Deep Dive into Summus Global

Summus Global is company with a very interesting model that gives a glimpse about the future of virtual care. It delivers online specialty care and much more to employers. You might think that means it is in the second opinion space, or in the care navigation space. And you’d be right, but not completely right. Julian Flannery the CEO tells me that it’s much more than that and has greater ambitions too. I took really deep dive into Summus with conversation with Julian and a thorough demo of the service from Dennis Purcell the COO–Matthew Holt

#HealthTechDeals Episode 3: TigerConnect, Verana Health, Waymark, Formel Skin, and RCM

In this episode of Health Tech Deals, Jess’s productivity this weekend was brought to a show-stopping halt thanks to some Microsoft updates. Does adding unnecessary clicks and creating useless toolbars mean that Microsoft is finally ready for healthcare IT? Jess and I talk about this and some more deals in health tech: TigerConnect gets $300 million, Verana Health gets $150 million, Waymark gets $45 million, Formel Skin gets $30 million Euros, and RCM acquires competitor Cloudmed for $4.1 billion.

-Matthew Holt

DAOs May Rescue Healthcare

By KIM BELLARD

You may have seen the news that Kaiser Permanente has signed on to be an organizing member of Graphite Health, joining SSM Health, Presbyterian Healthcare Services, and Intermountain Healthcare.  Graphite Health, in case you missed its October launch announcement, is “a member-led company intent on transforming digital health care to improve patient outcomes and lower costs,” focusing on health care interoperability.  

That’s all very encouraging, but I’m wondering why it isn’t a DAO.  In fact, I’m wondering why there aren’t more DAOs in healthcare generally.

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Medicare Advantage Is a Superior Program (Part two)

By GEORGE HALVORSON

Former Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson has written on THCB on and off over the years, most notably with his proposal for Medicare Advantage for All post-COVID. He wrote a piece in Health Affairs last week arguing with the stance of Medicare Advantage of Don Berwick and Rick Gilfillan (Here’s their piece pt1, pt2). Here’s a longer exposition of his argument. We published part one last week so please read that first. This is part two – Matthew Holt

Medicare Advantage is better for the underserved

The African American and Hispanic communities who were particularly hard hit by those conditions and by the Covid death rates have been enrolling in significant numbers in Medicare Advantage plans.

The sets of people who were most damaged by Covid have chosen in disproportional numbers to be Medicare Advantage members. Currently 51 percent of the African Americans on Medicare are in Medicare Advantage plans and more than 60 percent of the Hispanic Medicare members will be on Medicare Advantage this year.

That disproportionate enrollment in Medicare Advantage surprises some people, but it really should not surprise anyone because the Plans have made special,  direct, and inclusive efforts to be attractive to people with those sets of care needs and have delivered better care and service than many of the new enrollees have ever had in their lives. 

The Medicare Advantage plans have language proficiency support competencies, and language requirements and capabilities that clearly do not exist anywhere for fee-for-service Medicare care sites. A combination of team care,  language proficiency, and significantly lower direct health care costs for each member has encouraged that pattern of enrollment as well.

The $1600 savings per person has been a highly relevant factor as more than twice as many of the lowest income Medicare members — people who make less than $30,000 a year — are now enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans.

Medicare Advantage’s critics tend to explicitly avoid discussing those enrollment patterns, and some of the most basic critics actually shamelessly say, with what must be at least unconscious malicious intent in various publications and settings, that the Medicare Advantage demographics for both ethnicity and income levels are a clone for standard Medicare membership. Those critics have said that  there is nothing for us to learn or see from any enrollment patterns or care practices based on those sets of issues.

Many people who discuss Medicare Advantage in media and policy settings generally do not focus on or even mention the people in our population who most need Medicare Advantage — the 4 million people who are now enrolled in the Special Needs Plans.

Special Needs Plans for Dual Eligibles

The Special Needs Plans take care of low-income people who have problematic levels of care needs and who very much need better care.

Continue reading…

THCB Gang Episode 78, Jan 13

On #THCBGang I hosted the double trouble of vaunted futurists Ian Morrison (@seccurve) & Jeff Goldsmith, and medical historian Mike Magee (@drmikemagee) for an hour of conversation and banter about the health care system, the world in politics, and whether “Don’t Look Up” is a spoof or a documentary. Really good stuff, especially from Jeff on whether Medicare pays enough to keep hospitals alive. (Spoiler alter–he doesn’t think so!)

You can see the video below & if you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels.

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