Almost a year after New Directions Behavioral Health and Tridiuum announced their merger, the pair have launched a new joint company dubbed Lucet.
Lucet works with payers to help their members connect with behavioral health care in less than five days. Its tech-backed product, Navigate & Connect, includes a digital platform and a team of care navigators.
“Since our merger last January, New Directions and Tridiuum have worked together to accelerate how we reimagine delivering behavioral health services for members,” Shana Hoffman, president and CEO at Lucet, told Behavioral Health Business in an email. “Part of that process has been integrating our care services with smart technology that has strengthened how we partner with providers and payers to optimize behavioral health for all. New Directions and Tridiuum each bring very different and distinct value to the combined company. Because what we’re building is completely new and far greater than the sum of its parts, we felt it deserved a new brand.”
Lucet designed the platform to help patients across the behavioral health acuity spectrum find appropriate care. The platform has a claims-based algorithm that can assess real-time risk and give members of the care navigation team additional insights into the needs of a patient.
Meanwhile, the care navigators can use the information from the tech platform and guide users through their behavioral health benefits and needs. It also has a 24/7 crisis support line.
“We do not think that technology alone will influence the behavioral health industry in the future. Our Navigate & Connect solution combines an advanced technology platform built on more than 20 years of research with the industry’s largest team of care navigators,” Hoffman said. “It is this combination of technology with member-centric services that we think is so powerful. We provide a turn-key solution for payers to optimize behavioral health care and access for their members.”
Lucet is pitching its new tool as a way to help payers save money and get members into care. The company boasts that plan members using its services have seen annual savings of about $1,000 in an outpatient setting and $3,000 in an inpatient setting.
“Our Navigate & Connect offering has demonstrated significant [per member per month] cost savings to our health plan customers that result largely from connecting members who need behavioral healthcare to clinically-appropriate quality care which in turn reduces overall healthcare costs,” Hoffman said. “A key component of our technology platform is the ability to routinely deliver ongoing mental health assessments to guide and match members to clinically-relevant quality care. At Lucet we partner with health plans to enable access, ensure quality, and ultimately lower costs.”
Lucet’s tool can integrate with a provider’s electronic health record, practice management system and other point solutions, according to the release. Integrating with these systems helps care navigators see clinician availability so they can make a patient an appointment.
Prior to the merger, New Directions focused on partnering with various organizations to offer managed behavioral health care, employee assistance programs and organizational consulting and health coaching. New Directions was founded in 1995.
Founded in 1997, Tridiuum’s digital platform was designed to help patients, payers and providers access integrated behavioral and primary care health information.
“New Directions Behavioral Health brings more than 20 years of member-centric behavioral health experience to Lucet,” Hoffman said. “Tridiuum brings more than 20 years of clinical research and technology expertise to Lucet. Combining the long and successful track records of both companies gives us extremely unique capabilities to address the growing concerns around behavioral health and the challenges payers face ensuring their members get the resources they need.”
Lucet now manages 15 million patients across 50 states.
Companies featured in this article:
