Video: Investments disrupting the mental and behavioral health ecosystem; Panel 2

— Anecdotally, the estimate of how many medical visits will be on video post-pandemic will be around 15-30%.

 

— COVID was a forcing function that made clinical leaders more open to change. The medical industrial complex works well on fee-for-service for the incumbents. It’s failed consumers and society because of the increasing costs. But healthcare is slow to change largely due to long sales cycles and cumbersome regulations. So behavior has been tough to change. COVID forced the ecosystem to set up a telehealth service… yesterday. 

 

— While COVID was a wake-up call to telehealth and opportunities, it also meant more people competing and money flowing into the system. This has created a lot of challenges, primarily a shortened time frame to make decisions, which often leads to bad decisions. 

 

— Valuations are high and not every company will win based on valuation. Not every company will be able to grow into their valuation so it’s risky for many companies to be taking capital now with such a high valuation that they will have to deliver a return on. There will be consolidation. 

 

— One area where there’s too many companies is teletherapy. And the companies in that space will have to transform that business model beyond connecting a physician or therapist to a patient.

 

— How does Ginger stay competitive against similar companies building a war chest, like Lyra and Modern Health? Companies that set themselves apart are the ones that demonstrate strong outcomes and have big distribution partnerships. Hence anyone that can tap into the payer market and win over payers will be the winners. Employers were once a great target, but now it’s time to get into the payer market.

 

— Areas outside the verticals focused on certain disease states? Digital therapeutics. Biggest challenges are figuring out reimbursements; getting providers to adopt these new solutions because they’re not aware of them. There are some opportunities in horizontal plays as well, such as companies connecting non-clinical local services to provider groups to capture social determinants of health data or provide services (transportation, food) that play a role in our health. There are also a lot of new B2C or direct to consumer plays and new companies emerging to power and support these companies, such as Truepill, which is providing the backend infrastructure to enhance patient experiences. There are even new EMRs being created for B2C companies.

  

— When trying to bring a product to market in healthcare, think about patient and provider satisfaction (do both sides like it)? Clinical efficacy (can the product deliver on its intent); ROI.

 

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