Magellan Healthcare Partners with Ria Health for AUD Services in California

Ria Health, a virtual treatment provider for alcohol use disorder (AUD), has announced a collaboration with Magellan Healthcare to make its services available to California members of the behavioral and specialty health solutions manager.

Under the partnership, San Francisco-based Ria will offer medical and coaching support by way of a secure video chat option. Ria’s one-on-one coaching and digital tools allow the platform to track alcohol consumption, with alcohol cessation medications also available.

Ria’s services are provided by physicians who administer the AUD medications naltrexone and acamprosate, which are intended to help users moderate or cease their drinking altogether. Users’ alcohol progress is measured by a breathalyzer that comes with the app, with medications available through local pharmacies.

“Our program is clinically proven to help people reduce harmful drinking and the average patient shows a reduction in their blood alcohol level by 75 percent,” Ria CEO Tom Nix said in a press release issued by the company.

Ria claims that its services result in users’ blood alcohol content levels going from 0.09 to 0.03 within six months. The company asserts that the non-drinking days per week of users double within 180 days of engagement, along with users achieving a medication adherence rate of nearly 80% after a year.

Ria additionally notes that the company has seen a 500% increase in enrollment to the platform during the pandemic, which follows an uptick in alcohol trends nationwide.

According to a survey by Nielsen, domestic sales of alcohol increased 54% for the week ending March 21, 2020 – a date generally considered to be around the beginning of the pandemic — compared to a year before. Additionally, the journal Hepatology reports that excessive drinking – or binge drinking – has risen by 21% across the country as Covid has progressed.    

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has previously estimated that excessive alcohol consumption over a 12-month period has cost the United States $249 billion. The agency has also reported that nearly 15 million people suffer from AUD.

“Even before the pandemic, we were seeing the increased need for mental health and addiction services,” Caroline Carney, the president of behavioral health for Magellan Healthcare, said in the press release. Carney is also the chief medical officer of Magellan Healthcare’s parent organization, Magellan Health.

Magellan Health earlier this year finalized its sale to managed care organization Centene Corp. (NYSE: CNC) for $2.2 billion. The deal resulted in the addition of 41 million users to Centene’s behavioral health platform.

“Now, we are beginning to learn the true impact of the pandemic through both survey and utilization data that show increases in problematic drinking and medical complications of drinking,” Carney added in the release. “There never has been a more important time to recognize and treat alcohol use disorder.”