The majority of behavioral health insiders believe that mental heath is the most attractive investment target for the space in 2023.
That’s according to a new survey from Behavioral Health Business, which included 150 responses from professionals who work in the behavioral health industry. Sixty-three percent of respondents said mental health was the most attractive investment target, followed by substance use disorder (21%) and psychedelics (7%).
“Mental health has clearly distinguished itself as being a lead segment within behavioral health,” Dexter Braff, the president of the M&A advisory firm The Braff Group, said during a recent BHB webinar. “It was not always that way.”
Autism, for instance, used to be a top investment area.
“Two years ago, what you would have seen is autism [as the leader]. … So these things do move. There’s a rotation of segments, and, right now, the target that so many people are looking at is mental health.”
Meanwhile, 27% of behavioral health insiders said that treating underserved populations was the greatest opportunity for the industry in 2023.
In part, that view reflects the attention that improving care for underserved populations – for example, individuals who live in extremely rural areas – has gotten from policymakers.
“You cannot achieve equity if you’re not addressing the underlying issues that frame our society, and that includes behavioral health access,” Dr. Meena Seshamani, director of the Center for Medicare at the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), said during a panel at The Future of Mental Healthcare East 2022 conference
In BHB’s survey, another 26% of respondents said that pursuing value-based relationships was the greatest opportunity, followed by expanding service offerings (23%), industry consolidation (10%) and improving virtual care delivery (9%).
Several industry executives have recently discussed their value-based care bullishness with BHB.
“There’s a shifting mindset to prioritizing outcomes over volume, particularly in mental health care,” Headspace Health CEO Russ Glass previously told BHB. “With this, we will start to see an increase in value-based contracting in the space.”
Santa Monica, California-based Headspace Health was formed in 2021 after virtual behavioral health company Ginger and mental wellbeing startup Headspace merged. At the time, the combined company was valued at more than $3 billion.
Looking ahead, a whopping 83% of behavioral health insiders that took part in the survey said they expect telehealth use to either increase or at least stay the same.
It’s important to note, however, that their response came before the Biden administration publicly announced the COVID-19 public health emergency (PHE) will end on May 11. When that happens, some of the telehealth flexibilities that emerged at the start of 2020 will sunset, though many regulatory waivers will remain in place beyond May 11.
“Our business and others like ours have demonstrated that regardless of pandemic restrictions, members overwhelmingly prefer virtual modalities when it comes to mental health,” Russ said. “Virtual mental health will continue to buoy the telemedicine market in 2023.”
The bulk (55%) of behavioral health insiders said the digital tool they are most excited about in 2023 is telehealth. This was followed by digital therapeutics (25.3%) and remote patient monitoring (8%).
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