Not everyone with alcohol use disorder can or wants to swear off alcohol altogether. Oar Health understand this as part of its business model.
The New York City-based digital addiction treatment company seeks to differentiate itself from a crowded digital mental health space by accommodating people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) who want to become abstinent from alcohol as well as those who simply want to drink less.
“We want to serve … everyone who could benefit from a different relationship with alcohol whether that be moderation or quitting,” Jonathan Hunt-Glassman told Behavioral Health Business in an interview.
The approach of accepting moderation as part of a care plan is itself part of a strategy that seeks to help Oar Health sidestep three traps that many digital health platforms fall victim to, Hunt-Glassman said.
By avoiding the traps, Oar Health seeks the differentiation needed to succeed in a crowded sector but also to survive a potential wave of rollups in digital mental health.
Other experts have told BHB about a possible wave of M&A that may consolidate many digital mental health point solutions.
“I think it would be silly not to think that there won’t be a shakeout over time,” Hunt-Glassman said.
Different goals for different patients
Oar Health, founded in 2020 and launched in January 2021, seeks first to avoid the trap of insisting on the same clinical goal for every patient that it cares for across 27 states.
For Oar Health, abstinence and moderation are equally good goals for those that may meet the clinical qualifications for alcohol use disorder, its exclusive clinical focus.
Avoiding this trap considerably opens Oar Health’s appeal to potential patients when considering how many people may need care for their alcohol use.
In 2020, an estimated 28.3 million American 12 years or older met the criteria for AUD, according to the latest results of the 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
The same survey finds 138.5 million reported drinking at all while 61.6 million engaged in binge drinking and 17.7 million were found to be heavy drinkers within a month of taking the survey.
What Oar Health offers — and how people could use it
The second trap Oar Health hopes to dodge is forcing all people into one programmatic approach.
“We want to be much more members-led, allowing people to select the options that feel right for them in the moments that matter most,” Hunt-Glassman said.
In practice, this looks like patients being able to access the company’s digital DSM-V-based patient assessment and intake form online at any time, purposely not setting rigid schedules of appointments, and access to on-demand services and content.
Hunt-Glassman built Oar Health on four core elements — a dynamic assessment tool available at all times that is then the basis for a clinician-built treatment plan; access to medication-assisted treatment (MAT), potentially with prescription fulfillment through Oar’s partner pharmacy Health Warehouse; digital tools through iOS and Android apps; and unlimited ongoing access to clinicians for follow-up.
For those seeking to quit alcohol altogether following a bout with AUD, the (MAT) portion of Oar Health’s services will be most important. In comparison, someone seeking to moderate my benefit more from digital tools and content that help patients observe and modulate their behavior.
Oar Health works with a clinical staffing agency for digital health companies to access about 30 clinicians who provide care for the platform. Hunt-Glassman declined to name the agency.
These clinicians are not Oar Health employees. However, the clinicians, who are mostly physicians and nurse practitioners, receive Oar-specific training on addiction medicine developed by experts in the space.
All told, the company employs about 13 people.
Different service strategies
Third, Oar Health hopes to deliver a true digital-first service, not one that simply mimics in-person services in a digital format. Presently, its apps are in beta.
“We want to … think about ways that things like proven models like cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational interviewing can be delivered in digital formats as well as things like empathetic expert care,” Hunt-Glassman said. “We feel like there’s a lane to be the place that people start when they recognize an issue of addiction or compulsion in our lives.”
Oar Health is also not subject to a looming issue for the many digital MAT startups and other addiction treatment providers that rely on telehealth — the resumption of the Ryan Haight Act.
During the pandemic, the Drug Enforcement Administration waived the Ryan Haight Act’s requirement for in-person visits to prescribed controlled substances via telehealth.
This was a boon for the spate of startups that focus on treating opioid-use disorder, most of whom focus on managing buprenorphine prescriptions. Buprenorphine is a controlled substance and is also considered the gold standard for OUD treatment.
Some worry that the pandemic-era flexibilities around controlled substances won’t last.
The medication that Oar Health offers and its clinicians manage is naltrexone — one of three drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat AUD. The other two are acamprosate and disulfiram, neither of which is a controlled substances.
It is also one of the three FDA-approved drugs for treating OUD.
Companies such as Oar Health predicated on sophisticated technology and clinical services can’t be bootstrapped, Hunt-Glassman said. Early on in the development of Oar Health, he partnered with a startup incubator called NewCo, which is backed by the New York City-based internet business conglomerate IAC/InterActiveCorp (Nasdaq: IAC).
Oar Health spun out of NewCo in 2021 after IAC invested under $10 million in Oar, Hunt-Glassman said, declining to specify the exact investment amount. He also declined to precisely specify how many patients engage with Oar Health, leaving it at several thousand.
Looking to the future, the company is exploring other forms of addiction and compulsion that Oar Health’s model might serve. In a follow-up email, Hunt-Glassman said that Oar Health will launch a new vertical — tobacco cessation. The company anticipates launching the new program later in 2022.