Hi, everyone. This is Erica Spicer Mason with
Becker's Healthcare. Thank you so much for tuning
into the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
So today we're going to talk about the
future of integrated care and what leaders need
to do now to achieve this at scale.
And joining me for this discussion today is
Shana Hoffman, the president and CEO of Lucid.
Shana, welcome. Thank you so much again for
joining the podcast today. Thanks so much, Erica,
for having me on.
We're thrilled to have you with us. And
before we get into our discussion about integrated
care, wanted to just check-in with you to
see if you could share a little bit
more about yourself, your work in health care,
whatever you think is helpful for our listeners
to know.
Sure. Well, again, great to be here with
you. Shana Hoffman, president and CEO here at
Lucid. So I've spent my whole career, in
health care. I always joke when people talk
to to me that I'm,
somewhat jaded for my age in health care,
but I feel like I've I've sort of
seen it all. I was at DaVita for,
a couple years then sort of in the
VC backed
tech space,
working on patient access and sort of very
small early stage companies, and then spent the
better part of the last probably close to
ten years now in the behavioral health space,
a mix of private equity backed players.
And then here,
at Lucid, which is a unique, payer owned
company
and really have been passionate about how do
we get behavioral health to the forefront. And
we're really excited, and we'll talk about this,
I'm sure, today. We believe really, and I
believe through sort of throughout my career that
behavioral health is the unlock. And if you
can actually unlock
behavioral health needs for an individual patient member,
that's what's gonna allow you to really transform
their health care journey broadly across all the
different dimensions.
Oh, what a great quote. Behavioral health is
the unlock. I I I think that is
so well said, Shana. So thank you for
sharing a bit more about your background and
kind of this ethos that's guiding you and
your work at Lucid.
And just in that same vein as of
behavioral health being,
you know, getting it to the forefront, acknowledging
its importance, I think there is a growing
recognition that
chronic disease overlaps with behavioral health needs in
many cases.
And and while that acknowledgment, it seems to
be there increasingly,
care can be frustrating for patients and for
providers and payers, especially because we're seeing a
lot of fragmentation
between the two
care journeys. So what do you see as
the most significant risks and the consequences of
fragmentation like this?
Yeah. I mean, Erica, it's a great point.
I think for for a long time, we've
known that behavioral health and
chronic, you know, medical conditions are intersected.
To your point around fragmentation though, it's very
interesting when you talk
to anyone that's sort of bearing risk, whether
that's a payer, whether that's a risk bearing
primary care organization,
they look at high cost needs claimants, and
they generally look at those folks in two
buckets. Right? They look at folks on the
medical side and sort of high risk, high
needs, and then they're also looking at people
that are high utilizers from a behavioral health
perspective.
What I've, you know, noticed throughout,
the years is that if you actually look
at the percentage of people that are utilizing
behavioral health services within
the high risk, high needs and working to
drive up those members that are connected into
care,
there's a much lower percent of those people
that are in behavioral health care. And so
it's it's sort of long been this question
in my mind of why are we not
trying to drive up behavioral health care and
looking at it at the intersection of those
things.
But to your point, this sort of system
of care doesn't actually put behavioral health and
medical health together in a lot of cases.
And that's why I'm super excited about the
work that we're doing at Lucid. So we've
been, you know, purpose built behavioral health company
for twenty seven years
now knowing that we were trying to get
as many people screen triage and connected into
behavioral health care. And that was our mission
and purpose is how do we do that
reliably, repeatedly at scale. But now because of
this knowledge that, again, behavioral health is the
unlock and the force multiplier on medical expense,
we've actually brought a medical care delivery company
into the fold at Lisette.
So now we're able to actually put that
behavioral health at the forefront and break down
some of that fragmentation because we actually have
a company that delivers care in the home.
And so now you can think about sort
of that tip of spear for us of
that looking at that patient. Yes. We know
their medical needs, but we're looking at every
patient through a behavioral health lens
and being able to say, how do we
make sure that their behavioral health needs are
met? Because that's gonna allow us to then
unlock on the medical side. So I think
you're right that a lot of that fragmentation
exists in the industry. I think we were
trying to break through it in the form
of, hey. We have a great behavioral health
solution that can help you. I think now
we've said, hey. We're gonna take matters into
our own hands,
and bring that medical care delivery asset into
the fold. And I'm incredibly excited about some
of the outcomes we're already seeing and what
we can actually drive and deliver that to
the system to be that integrated care solution
where I think,
execution has been challenging in the past, and
we're seeing really great opportunities to actually drive
that integration.
Mhmm.
Shana, what an exciting development. Thank you so
much for sharing about how your how Lucid
is bringing medical care delivery kind of into
the fold as you've described. I'm looking forward
to hearing about some some of those outcomes
that you're seeing as well.
But just wanna say too that it's a
fascinating approach because I think sometimes or I
I would say most times we hear about
the reverse approach. It's normally medical providers bringing
behavioral health into the fold, but, you know,
you're I I think this is certainly, it
seems like Lucent must be a front runner
in this position. So really exciting to hear
this development. And it reminds me of what
we hear about a lot in health care
today, which is this whole person approach to
care. So combining medical, behavioral health, social supports,
and I know that that can have a
big impact on health outcomes. So from your
perspective,
what role do multidisciplinary
teams and community based interventions play in making
care both effective and also accessible?
Yeah. I mean, I think it's a multidisciplinary
approach and team is, you know, a huge
part of the solution.
Again, I think, you know, the hallmark really
of Lucid has been how do you break
down to sort of execution some of these
things that we all talk about. Right? Everyone,
I think, has known multidisciplinary
care teams being able to weave in social
determinants of health, being able to kind of
bring a holistic solution to the patient. But
it's not as simple. In a lot of
cases, the way that then manifests in the
system is that you have a care manager
from your health plan. Maybe you're in a
particular chronic disease program through that health plan.
So now you might have a care manager
through that specific kidney care, for example,
disease program, then you go to your primary
care provider. If they're in a risk,
arrangement, you might also have a care manager.
Right? You might have one through the eight.
So the everyone's, I think, recognize
the importance and and critical nature of those
different systems of care, But then kind of
it's where the rubber meets the road in
the execution that I think things struggle. Because
if you're a patient on the other side,
and this is where, you know, we've been
very focused on being member centric or patient
centric now sort of in the in the
world of both living in payer and care
delivery.
But how do you
really make that into a reality that if
it's your mom or your dad on the
other side
of that paper that they're not getting four
or five calls and outreach because they're trying
to engage that individual. Right?
And so, you know, to me, I think
there's again, this is one of those times
when there's been such strong recognition,
really about multidisciplinary care teams as well as
kind of the need to integrate behavioral health,
but it's all kinda comes down to the
execution. And so I think that's gonna be
really for Lucid and for other organizations is
how do you start to say
what is really best for that member patient
and break down some of those workflows. Again,
it's really challenging when it's five different companies
that are all out for their own, you
know, financials and economics, and they need to
engage that patient. But we've been able to
sort of simplify some of that because we're
doing this kind of handhold
with the payer, and there's been more trust
and willingness if you're taking kind of the
medical and behavioral
to be kind of that one central partner
and really quarterback that care in a really
meaningful way,
that that can integrate and and really deliver
on that promise, from a from a multidisciplinary
approach.
Yeah, Shana. A really helpful overview. And so
I wanna go a little bit deeper there,
and then also we'll we'll be sure to
touch on some outcomes too. But, you know,
you're saying that to really bring this whole
person approach to life, it sounds like it's
complex. And at the same time, it it
requires a lot of simplification too, making things
simpler for payers as they're navigating the space.
So I wanna talk a little bit about
scaling this model. You know, what's really needed
from health plans and providers to deliver integrated
care at scale? And if you could ask
leaders to make one change right now to
head in that direction, what would it be?
Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of
the work that we're doing is around operational
and clinical transparency.
And what I mean by that is everyone
kind of sitting at the table,
and sharing what they are uniquely positioned to
do well and not. I think again and
and we've sort of benefited in in not
being, you know, a VC backed company that's
sort of trying to raise the next round
and having to kind of promise on on
certain outcomes, but really deeply rooted in the
execution and and delivering results. And so coming
to the table and saying, hey. If you
pass me a population, I'm gonna cut that
population and look at it in all these
different ways,
and I'm gonna see where I can actually
drive impact. So if I have chronic disease
members in a certain condition type and they
have underlying behavioral health needs, we're gonna, one,
look at those things together. And then, two,
we're gonna pick where we know we can
drive impact and actually have
a both product
sales
pricing model that matches to that. And so
having a very
transparent conversation to a health plan around, this
is where I can drive impact with with
your members.
This is where I think maybe you can
drive impact with your members. And then, of
course, we need to bring the provider piece
into the fold as well in terms of
where, you know, the role of of those
particularly the risk bearing primary care players in
that. But really sort of dividing up that
population to drive impact, that is different from
kind of the, hey. Give me everybody,
and
I'm gonna have some sort of arbitrage opportunity
where there's some people that are not gonna
need care, and I'm gonna be able to
sort of make it
up on that and maybe or maybe not
be well positioned to deliver for those acute
populations. So I think it's this very,
I know everyone always talks about sort of
the data sharing and sort of why hasn't
value based care kind of come to fruition
in the way that everybody wants it to
and that being a data problem. I'm seeing
something slightly different, which is it's around kind
of taking that data and then having a
very transparent approach. And even in in the
operational side too in terms of what can
you drive actually from an engagement metric perspective,
not having the what's the promise of what
it is, but what what is actually
possible relative to staffing and outcomes. And I
think the more that those conversations happen, you
start to be able to sort of divvy
up the work to where the impact and
outcomes can be driven. And that also simplifies
things for the patient because, essentially, you don't
have
five different parties trying to engage that patient
to remember.
So interesting, Sheena. What you're saying here about
in value based care from your point of
view, it's not necessarily a data problem making
it hard for this model to really come
to life to the full extent. It's about
taking a transparent approach with that data operationally
speaking. It sounds almost like a surgical approach,
what you described earlier. It was such a
great,
great way that you described it, and I
appreciate you sharing that with our listeners. And
it sounds like two bidirectional communication is really
important,
for payers and providers in this in this
way.
But before we wrap, this has been such
a great conversation. I I did wanna give
you the chance to just highlight any
outcomes you're seeing either at the patient or
population level with this approach of truly integrating
care. You know, bringing medical care into the
fold or whatever you'd like to highlight or
any metrics that you're proud of, would love
to hear about those two.
Yeah. So, it's been really exciting. You know,
your comments are are right around sort of
that surgical approach. I am an engineer by
background, and so we've taken a very sort
of methodical approach to this, actually, both on
the behavioral health side and now on the
integrated care side. So,
you know, many of folks in the market
may know Lucid for,
our access to care product, the navigate connect
product, and it's been an interesting sort of
evolution
of the company where we've been, you know,
focused on innovating on the behavioral health offerings
for health plans and bringing this Navigate Connect
product that was focused on getting
patients connected quickly to high quality care. And
so that's been the, you know, starting point.
So we have now that product up and
running. Eighty three percent of patients are booked
into care within seven days. There's been a
a really significant increase, five point two days,
the average time between booking,
and care. And then the really exciting thing
is eighty one percent of those patients that
we are connecting to,
the initial visits are actually going for a
second visit. And so we've seen in the
data that the patients that are coming to
us through the various channels that we deploy
this through, one, actually have a higher acuity
on the medical side. So, again, this is
sort of the starting point of that integration
piece,
but also are continuing on into care.
And it's actually interesting on the behavioral health
side. You don't need that many,
outpatient interactions in many cases to actually start
to bend both the patient outcomes and the
cost curve, but it is really critical that
you get beyond that first visit. We've also
done over 15,000,000 assessments, and so we actually
have one of the largest repositories of sort
of provider agnostic behavioral health assessment data in
the country.
And then, you know, we've seen again in
the data from getting those numbers connected into
high quality care,
a $227
PMPM children medical expense savings. So all of
that data on the behavioral health side is
what then led us to say, hey. If
you bring together
the medical piece kind of, again, into the
fold. And so it's early days for us
on that, but we know from the the
we acquire a company called EMCARA and now
have relaunched,
that Lucid at Home product that the EMCARA,
Lucid at Home product delivers 26% reduction in
admission, 6% reduction in emergency department visits. And,
again, this is without really that BH at
the forefront component. And so we're really excited.
Hopefully, next time, you know, I come on
in in a year or so, we'll have
the,
data because we're already starting to really combine
those pieces together in the product to say
what's gonna be the impact if you layer
in those outcomes I've, you know, shared on
the behavioral health side, couple that up with
the medical side, and look at what you
can drive as far
as the, you know, healthy days at home,
which we look at, which is obviously the
human element of providing that as well as
on the, you know, financial measures. So I
think super exciting what has already been delivered
on both behavioral and medical.
And, of course, we, you know, spend a
lot of time figuring out what to measure
here.
But to me, you know, there's gonna be
a a a significant multiplier effect when you
combine these pieces together.
Yeah. Shana, I appreciate everything that you just
shared. Some really impressive metrics. And
as you said, if we we hopefully speak
again a year from now, I can't wait
to see how those numbers change and and
what's on the horizon for Lucid with this
new approach.
It's been a great time talking to you
today, Sheena. Just wanted to give you the
space to share any final thoughts or takeaways,
before we close our time together.
No. I really appreciated the the time today.
Again, I think
excited to start to have, you know, the
market talk about BH at the forefront. I
think you pointed it out well that most
times we think about medical primary and BH
secondary,
or tertiary in some cases. And so the
idea of putting
behavioral health primary, again, we're leading the charge
on that, but excited to see, the market
come along because I think, obviously, that, you
know, from my perspective is is better for
patients
if we take that approach. So really appreciated
the time today and excited to to keep
in touch over the next, coming months. Well,
Shana, thank you so much again for your
time and your insights today. It's been a
great conversation.
And, of course, we'd also like to thank
the sponsor for today's podcast episode, Lucid.
Listeners, you can tune in to more podcasts
from Becker's by visiting our podcast page at
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