Teams Get better Collectively has revealed a brand new mannequin of care that it calls “technology-assisted therapy”.
On Tuesday, the opioid use dysfunction (OUD) therapy supplier mentioned it had struck three offers with tech corporations to make it occur. One is Owl Labs, a Boston-based enterprise collaboration know-how firm. The corporate didn’t identify the opposite two companions.
The brand new technology-intensive mannequin represents an evolution of its value-based care technique. Based in 2014, the company operates exclusively on value-based care modalities. Teams Get better Collectively presents drug therapy and hybrid group remedy.
Over the previous three years, the corporate has recognized “imperfect entry” to know-how as a major barrier to care, Cooper Zelnick, the corporate’s chief development officer, instructed Behavioral Well being Enterprise.
So the corporate set out to verify know-how is rarely a motive folks do not search or proceed to obtain care. This new program goes as far as to supply members in want with cell telephones and tablets.
“We are saying it is our accountability to arm folks with the know-how they must be profitable,” Zelnick mentioned. “We now have all the time believed that it’s our accountability to supply the companies [members] must succeed – which, crazily sufficient, is just not the business commonplace.
“We at the moment are taking a place that with know-how, the seller has to shoulder that burden. That is the spirit of technology-assisted therapy.
Teams Get better Collectively’s value-based mannequin of care has all the time positioned the accountability for care success on the enterprise, not the member, Zelnick added.
The know-how behind technology-assisted therapy
Teams Get better Collectively has outfitted all group assembly rooms with techniques from Owl Labs. These embrace AI-powered cameras and screens to facilitate hybrid group conferences. This can enable folks to satisfy with their group in particular person or through telehealth.
About 30% of Teams Get better Collectively’s 13,000 members dwell 50 miles or extra from one among its greater than 150 places of work. This makes telehealth, and subsequently entry to digital gadgets, important for care.
The corporate has additionally outfitted its places of work with tablets that automate affected person reception, facilitate telehealth visits and supply 24/7 check-ins with its 24/7 assist desk.
The 2 nameless companions of Teams Get better Collectively present free cell telephones and tablets to members.
The cell phone companion gives free smartphones and repair plans via the so-called “Obamaphone” program.
Formally, the Federal Communications Fee in 1985 launched a program called Lifeline. It gives low-income People with phone companies. People are entitled to free telephones based mostly on their wants and vulnerability. The Obama administration included Web-connected cell telephones as a part of the FCC, hence the name.
In contrast to the cellphone program, Teams Get better Collectively pays to provide tablets to members. Zelnick mentioned the pill companion is “one of many largest corporations on the planet and a really recognizable identify.”
“These investments are aligned with our broader mission to deliver the Group’s lifesaving therapy mannequin to all who want it,” mentioned Colleen Nicewicz, CEO of Teams Get better Collectively, in a press launch. “We’re assured that our investments in technology-assisted therapy will assist extra folks get better from the persistent sickness of substance abuse.
Creating value-based care and enterprise
The corporate has places of work in 16 states, is licensed in 20 and plans to function in 26, Zelnick mentioned.
Since 2017, the corporate has raised a minimum of $98.2 million, based on Securities and Trade Fee filings. This consists of $60 million in Series C funding spherical which was introduced in Could 2021.
By the top of 2021, Teams Get better Collectively handled 9,000 members in 13 states and expanded its management team to accommodate development. Its enterprise was based round value-based care.
Teams Get better Collectively seeks to guide the behavioral well being business towards better care utilization and high quality outcomes.
Whereas it has improved, the behavioral well being sector has been slow to adopt technology that helps values-based care.
About 37% of personal psychological well being organizations taking Medicaid use digital well being data (EHRs). Moreover, 32% of personal substance use dysfunction therapy suppliers who settle for Medicaid use EHRs, according to a report by the Medicaid and CHIP Cost and Entry Fee (MACPAC).
Moreover, the business lacks a standard set of high quality care and outcomes or the means to measure them.
“If you concentrate on our business by way of outcomes, it is a backwater,” Zelnick mentioned. “The outcomes are opaque at greatest and never good – the outcomes are crap.”
Whereas affected person retention in outpatient dependancy therapy is a “north star,” it is unclear what the easiest way and ranges of care needs to be, Zelnick mentioned.
Along with embracing technology-assisted therapy, Zelnick mentioned Teams Get better Collectively will search to determine and enhance different obstacles to care.
“For instance, if the info exhibits that meals insecurity is the primary driver of stalling, you are going to see us shopping for natural strawberries,” Zelnick mentioned. “That is how we take into consideration the way forward for the group.”
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