Not-for-profit behavioral health care provider Rogers Behavioral Health and for-profit workforce mental health provider Lyra Health have forged an alliance.
The collaboration, announced Tuesday, gives Lyra access to Rogers’ health plan networks while allowing Rogers to scale its virtual services using Lyra’s national footprint. For Rogers and Lyra executives, the most important aspect of the partnership is that it creates a complete care continuum and improves patient access.
“One of the greatest things in behavioral health is that our patients come to us for a lifespan – maybe not to us, but they go to various people seeking help,” Cynthia Meyer, president and CEO of Rogers, told Behavioral Health Business. “One of the reasons that this is a good fit for both parties is it provides that full continuum of care.”
Oconomowoc, Wisconsin-based Rogers Behavioral Health provides care for mental health conditions and substance use disorders (SUDs) in 10 states. The provider operates three inpatient behavioral health hospitals, 17 residential programs, and 23 intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization program (IOP/PHP) centers.
The partnership connects Rogers’ more acute care models with Burlingame, California-based Lyra’s focus on outpatient therapy. Lyra provides virtual mental health care through relationships with employers, but this partnership allows the provider to care for patients beyond its employer deals.
“We get asked all the time by health systems, can we accept referrals from them?” Bob Kocher, president of Lyra Clinical Associates and co-founder of Lyra Health, said. “Today, we’re limited by the 20 million lives that we serve through employers. Now that’s a lot of people, but it’s not everybody. We will work with Rogers to get into their health plan networks so we can serve patients that they refer to us.”
Kocher is also a partner at venture capital firm Venrock.
Lyra will serve as patients’ bridge into Rogers, Kocher said, because some patients who seek care from Lyra will need higher-acuity care. Lyra can also provide more immediate care for patients seeking treatment from Rogers, connecting them to care in as little as one day rather than waiting for a longer period of time.
Lyra will also serve as a step-down care model for Rogers patients after more intensive behavioral health treatment.
“We’ll have a lot longer benefit of care by having this coordination,” Kocher said. “People won’t need to go back to higher levels of care as often or as quickly. We think that that creates a lot of value for insurance companies and our employer partners because we’ll have a better coordinated, more anticipatory outcome tracking system of care.”
As part of their efforts to expand care continuums, Rogers and Lyra plan to collaborate to expand Rogers’ virtual IOP capabilities over time. Rogers’ virtual IOP offerings are currently limited to the states in which it operates, but the partnership allows Rogers’ access to Lyra’s national footprint.
Rogers and Lyra have previously made referrals to each other, but this partnership allows the providers to share data and monitor outcomes. To forge the alliance, Rogers and Lyra connected their electronic health record (EHR) systems, which Kocher said was easy since both providers already operated modern data systems.
Sharing data will also enable Rogers and Lyra to conduct research. The providers plan to collaboratively develop shared clinical models, conduct and participate in clinical research and create new technologies. The two providers will also expand Rogers’ virtual IOP, citing increased needs for step-up and step-down care.
Partnerships between for-profit and not-for-profit behavioral health care providers are relatively uncommon, Meyer said.
“You don’t see them very often, but it’s the right fit clinically,” Meyer said. “It really is about access and serving people, and when we begin to say it’s about money, then I don’t think we’re doing the right thing.”
Rogers and Lyra expect to improve clinical outcomes through this partnership. The providers will track individual outcomes and perform clinical research, as well as work together to create new clinical models and technological tools.
The providers plan to conduct monthly meetings to review patient outcomes and metrics.
The partnership’s success also serves as a test of an integrated behavioral health care model.
“Nobody yet has proven in America and maybe on the earth, that a fully integrated behavioral system is a lot better,” Kocher said. “We’re going to measure everything about it, do research on it, publish on it and demonstrate that it’s better, and then, every day, make it better.”