Concert Health has inked two new collaborative care partnerships — one with Benson Hospital, a rural health hospital in Arizona, and another with Women’s Health U.S. (WHUSA), a multi-state women’s health practice.
The news comes just a few months after the collaborative care company struck up similar arrangements with two big name health systems: Equality Health, which is based in Phoenix, and CommonSpirit, which is the second largest nonprofit hospital chain in the country.
To date, Concert Health has a total of 56 partners across eight states, up from the 44 it had in four states as of January, according to CEO Spencer Hutchins.
“We’re probably 50% larger in terms of how many patients we’re caring for on a daily basis than we were when we spoke in January,” Hutchins told Behavioral Health Business, referring to an interview he did with BHB earlier this year following the company’s $14 million Series A fundraising round.
Headquartered in San Diego, California, Concert partners with primary care and women’s health providers to identify and address patients’ behavioral health needs. The virtual behavioral health startup uses collaborative care management to help medical doctors treat conditions such as depression and anxiety.
Concert’s technology platform and staff of remotely located behavioral health specialists make it possible. The company’s partner providers screen patients for anxiety and depression, then hand those with behavioral issues off to Concert care managers, who develop a plan for each patient and serve as a liaison between the primary care physician and a Concert psychiatric provider.
“[Concert’s recent growth] speaks to the breadth of the need in this country and the flexibility of our model — both the clinical model and collaborative care,” Hutchins said, noting that about 60% of Concert’s patients see a 50% reduction in symptoms within 90 days of care.
In regards to the company’s newest partners, Hutchins said Concert chose to team up with Benson Hospital because the rural community where it’s located lacks a single behavioral health specialist, leaving primary care clinicians to provide nearly all of the area’s behavioral health care.
“Sometimes we … assume that innovation has to start in big metros, and in reality, the creativity that is forced upon us in rural parts of the United States can … [lead to] more creative care models,” Hutchins said. “[Benson’s] a great example of that.”
Meanwhile, Concert’s partnership with WHUSA was born out of the unmet behavioral health needs of pregnant women, one in seven of whom is affected by anxiety or depression.
The partnership will give WHUSA patients across 130 centers and 650 providers in five states access to Concert’s collaborative care services.
“Sometimes even psychiatrists do not want to get involved in the perinatal phase,” Hutchins said. “One of our clinical leaders calls it a risk-risk trade off: There are some risks of being on antidepressants or some medications during pregnancy to the fetus, but there are also very real risks of having an expecting mom have uncontrolled depression or anxiety during pregnancy and after.”
Despite those risks, Concert is well-equipped to rise to the challenge, Hutchins said, pointing to the company’s host of clinicians who specialize in pregnant patients.
On top of that, he said the recent partnerships are indicative of what’s to come for the company: more growth.
“We’ll just need to continue to hire and train the best behavioral health providers in the country in order to support the needs in these places,” Hutchins said. “A huge amount [of our energy] is just focused on doing great work and continuing to be focused on patient outcomes and patient experience.”
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