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With two recently debuted
product offerings, a pair of health care companies aim to solve a problem
that has been thrown into sharp relief during the ongoing pandemic: highly
variable — and often
inadequate — access to behavioral health
care services. Industry observers say that both solutions are likely a
response to employer clients seeking increased care access points for their
covered workers.
Employer groups want more
care options for workers
- One of the
announcements comes from UnitedHealth Group, which in January rolled out a virtual
behavioral health coaching program that’s available to UnitedHealthcare
commercial plan members with mild depression, stress and anxiety.
Through the Optum-administered program, 5 million eligible fully insured
plan members can access support “through digital modules and 1:1 video
or telephonic conferencing and messaging with trained coaches” at no
additional cost.
- Then there’s
Lucet, the recently renamed spinout of Blue Cross Blue Shield plans that unveiled its new brand
and main product — called Navigate & Connect — in mid-January.
Lucet’s target customers are health insurers, as the company describes
Navigate & Connect as a “turn-key solution for payers to optimize
behavioral health care and access for their members.”
- “It’s really
being driven,
frankly, by the employers,” says Ashraf Shehata, national sector
lead for health care and life sciences at KPMG.
- “I think it is
all about giving people different options to enter into the system,”
Shehata says. “What we’re seeing is that the employers really start to
sit down together and say, ‘We need this.’ And they’re going to their
plan [administrators] and saying, ‘We need a much higher level of
engagement; I’m not just looking for a plan and network design — I need
better access points.’”
Medical, nonmedical
approaches are both critical
- UnitedHealth
pointed out in its press release that the new virtual coaching program
is part of a larger suite of behavioral health offerings, “which
includes “self-help tools, in-person and virtual visits, coaching, a
family support program and employee assistance programs, allowing
individuals to access support in a variety of ways.”
- Lucet,
meanwhile, aims to help payers maximize and augment their
networks.
- “One of the
things that makes Lucet stand apart is our ability to identify gaps across
existing behavioral health networks,” Shana Hoffman, the company’s
president and CEO, tells AIS Health. “This ultimately helps our plan
customers optimize a diverse behavioral health network that meets the
unique and changing needs of members.”
- Shehata
emphasizes that increasing access to clinical services remains a
critical part of any comprehensive behavioral health strategy.
- “If the goal is
to start to engage people with what are called nonmedical solutions,
then you open yourself up to a whole group of clinicians. But I do think
the medical engagement model is going to be still important in all of
these [offerings]. If I were helping to evaluate the quality of a
behavioral health program, as an employer, I would still be asking the
question around the medical model,” he says, noting that some therapies
for physical health conditions can come with behavioral-health-related
side effects.
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