Ep 40 – Digital Behavioral Health as a Gateway to Value, with Mark Redlus

Fixing the behavioral health crisis is an absolute imperative in the movement to value-based care. Currently, 1 out of 5 Americans (over 51 million) are living with a behavioral health condition, there are approximately 20 million individuals in the US with a substance use disorder, and 9 million people have had suicidal thoughts in the past year. The onset of a global pandemic has only exacerbated the behavioral health challenges in our country.  The solution is the integration of behavioral health with primary care.  Primary care is the “tip of the spear” as 70% of primary care appointments include problems with significant psychosocial issues, and less than half of those primary care patients receive any mental health treatment. Solving this crisis through integration, however, is simply not possible without digital health solutions that can facilitate coordination between behavioral and medical care. Innovation is our only gateway to value-based care at scale.

Mark Redlus, Chief Executive Officer of Tridiuum, is a venture-backed start-up executive with significant leadership experience in corporate management, M&A, strategy, and business development. His personal story aligns with the company’s transformational vision to advance behavioral-medical integration by delivering capabilities to identify those who need behavioral help, speed their access to care, and deliver a measurable impact on outcomes. Leveraging digital behavioral health solutions is key to winning this race to value.

Episode Bookmarks:

03:30 The inspiration of Apple and Steve Jobs on Tridiuum’s rebirth

04:30 “Digital intervention can make a difference in outcomes.”

05:40 Commercializing research to inform the development of new products in the behavioral health space

06:20 Challenging the status quo by designing digital behavioral health solutions with elegant design (Reference to Simon Sinek’s TedTalk)

06:50 The attempted suicide attempt of Mark’s daughter (Katherine) and how that informed his personal “Why” to improve behavioral health outcomes

08:20 Growing access problem for mental health services that has been exacerbated by COVID-19

08:50 The realization of the “inadequacy of care” in the immediate hours following Katherine’s attempt on her life

09:20 “We can do better about unlocking access to behavioral health services sooner.  People searching months for someone to talk to is unacceptable.”

10:45 1 out of 5 Americans (over 51 million) are living with a behavioral health condition, including 20 million SUD and 9 million with suicidal thoughts

12:50 “Technology is not the holy grail, but it has a role to play in a fully integrated behavioral health experience.”

13:20 The difference between co-located, multidisciplinary models and true integrated models of care

15:20 Integration of psychiatry and psychological counseling into primary care practices

15:40 Telepsychiatry and telepsychology in response to COVID-19

16:35 “Primary care is the tip of the spear where the broadest of array of behavior health demand is occurring.”

17:00 Only 14% of ACOs even have a behavioral health component in their care model

17:30 Patients who have a chronic disease have a 3-4X higher frequency of behavioral health comorbidities

18:00 Patients with a chronic disease and behavioral health comorbidity cost as much as 50 percent more and are likely to be noncompliant

18:30 $26-48 billion could be saved through behavioral health integration, representing a 5-10 percent decrease in overall healthcare costs

19:20 Partnership with Fresenius in managing behavioral health for CKD and ESRD patients to lower total cost of care

21:15 Projected 60-80% reduction in total cost of care per patient when ESRD patients are treated for behavioral health comorbidities

22:00 “Value-based contracts are difficult to justify if you can’t drive behavioral health access for members and patients.”

23:00 The need for user-friendly software design to integrate into provider workflow and support patient engagement

24:55 Measuring the effectiveness of behavioral health providers and how to encourage providers not in the top quartile of performance

26:50 “Providing data and insights is not enough – you also need effective storytelling to show providers the path towards performance improvement.”

27:50 Reinforcing provider storytelling to energize peers around technology enablement of behavioral health

29:30 The accelerated technology adoption from COVID-19 (video visits, mental health apps, and other asynchronous technologies)

30:45 Mark ponders the future of technology (e.g. AI, internet of things, 5G, digital therapeutics, wearables, and gamification of consumer health apps)

33:00 Hub and spoke capabilities of care delivery and technology enablement (“right care, right time, right place”)

34:00 Tridiuum’s development of a network effect-based model based on algorithms being shared across open APIs

35:00 Following patients across the care continuum is foundational to unlocking behavioral health care at a “galactic level”

36:00 HIPAA concerns related to democratizing data through open APIs and interoperability

38:45 Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to better assess the patient’s health condition, proximity, and availability of behavioral health providers

39:45 The difference between Deep Learning and Machine Learning

40:45 Feedback Informed, Machine Learning algorithms to create network effect in behavioral health treatment optimization

44:00 Employee Mental Health (200 million workdays are lost each year due to depression, costing employees between $17 and $44 billion)

46:00 Employees are in a class-based system since only large employers have the scale to leverage behavioral health programs

47:00 Tridiuum’s collaboration with Crossover Health to study mental health therapy in the workplace

48:40 Parting thoughts on consumer-centric solutions and technology innovation to help our country win this “Race to Value”

50:30 “Innovation is our only gateway to value-based care at scale.”