Groups Recover Together — an organization that leverages value-based care to provide group-based medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder (OUD) — has raised $60 million in Series C funding.
Oak HC/FT led the round, joining existing big-name investors such as Optum Ventures, Kaiser Permanente Ventures and others.
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, Groups Recover Together has more than 70 locations across 12 states, though it temporarily switched to all virtual care amid the coronavirus. It provides patients a bundle of wraparound services in addition to MAT, which it delivers in supportive group settings.
To make its model possible, Groups has more than 70 value-based contracts nationwide with individual health plans in the commercial, Medicaid and Medicare spaces.
Groups plans to use its new funding, which comes as OUD overdoses are at an all-time high, to expand into at least another five states by the end of the year and to enhance its virtual care capabilities.
“Groups has been incredibly innovative when it comes to supporting their members during this time of increased need, impressively adapting to challenging circumstances,” Nancy Brown, general partner at Oak HC/FT, said in a press release announcing the news. “Further, their strong commitment to value-based care has allowed Groups to drive better outcomes for traditionally underserved populations where OUD prevalence is highest.”
Those outcomes include Groups’ six-month 74% patient retention rate, which is well above the industry average of about 30%, according to Kevin Holst, Chief Commercial Officer at Groups Recover Together.
Holst previously told Behavioral Health Business that the company’s value-based nature is what makes such impressive outcomes possible.
“We’re taking risks on our performance. We’re held accountable to the bundled rate that we’re paid in driving key metrics with our members,” Holst told BHB earlier this year. “It’s the only way to deploy and be able to invest in the things that we’ve proven to drive outcomes.”
Groups’ members meet with their counselor and MAT group once a week. On top of that, they also get access to care navigation and peer recovery services as part of their treatment. Care navigators can help patients with everything from finding transportation and housing to addressing food insecurity and other social determinants of health, which wouldn’t be fiscally possible in a fee-for-service model.
While Groups is still one of the few behavioral health providers all in on value-based care, experts believe the coronavirus could change that, pushing the payment model into the mainstream and benefiting behavioral health providers in the process.
“The march towards value-based purchasing has been predicated on this idea that fee-for-service reimbursement doesn’t work,” Chuck Ingoglia, president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health, previously said. “And if ever we had a situation that proved that, it was this last year.”
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