Last week’s funding-heavy news cycle was punctuated by Brightside Health’s $33M Series C round, which added more momentum to the telemental healthcare provider’s recent expansion efforts.
Brightside provides full-range care for patients with mood disorders spanning anywhere from mild anxiety to severe depression. The “precision psychiatry” platform is built on a technology backbone that includes:
- ActiveSupervision – a real-time care management solution that tracks patient progress and identifies situations that might require risk escalation.
- PrecisionRx – AI clinical decision support that recommends medication and dose combinations most likely to be effective (resulting in a 70% response rate to the first treatment cycle, twice the industry standard).
- Crisis Care – a national telehealth program for individuals with elevated suicide risk.
In the two years since its last raise, Brightside has scaled those solutions to the point where it can now provide in-network care to over 100 million covered lives, and it’s published close to a dozen peer-reviewed papers supporting its approach.
- A study from November showed that the Crisis Care program was effective at eliminating suicidal ideation in an average of six sessions.
- Another study in the March 2023 issue of Psychotherapy Research found that supplementing teletherapy with video lessons helps address depression and anxiety.
Put all that together, and Brightside is uniquely positioned to serve not only the highest-acuity patients, but also the populations that often have the hardest time finding effective care.
- The fresh capital will help it do just that, advancing its expansion into Medicare and Medicaid through recent payor partnerships with CareOregon, Blue Shield of California, BCBS of Texas, and Centene.
- The Series C also put Brightside on a “comfortable path to profitability” in the next few quarters, with former Optum Behavioral Health Solutions CEO Trip Hofer joining the board to help oversee the next leg of that journey.
The Takeaway
Few telemental health companies have been brave enough to target the patients with the most severe symptoms, let alone those in the markets with the greatest need. Even fewer have been open to publishing their results. Brightside’s willingness to check all of those boxes makes it a must-watch in this space, especially considering that it’s tackling that checklist with soon-to-be positive margins.
