Mental health is health

Last week, President Biden announced a proposed rule requiring payers “to make sure people have equivalent access between their mental health and medical benefits,” with the goal of improving Americans’ quality and coverage of mental health services. The message of the rule is clear: mental health is of equal importance as physical health. Rulemaking like this would create even stronger tailwinds for digital health entrepreneurs and investors focused on a range of digital behavioral health solutions—it’s been the top-funded clinical indication every quarter since 2018. Even in the great belt-tightening of the past few quarters, Rock Health’s venture funding database shows that companies with a mental health offering still pulled in $569M in H1 2023.

Recent approaches to digital mental health have increasingly focused on more severe conditions. Author Health raised $115M to provide treatment for serious mental illness and substance use disorder to Medicare Advantage members. Firsthand landed $28M in Q1 to address the needs of patients with serious mental illness in the Medicaid sector. And Rock Health port co Equip Health, which delivers evidence-based eating disorder treatment, recently scaled to serve patients in all 50 states. Hopefully, increased insurance coverage through the new policy will allow for more reimbursement pathways for these kinds of needed approaches. 

Rock Health Summit 2023 is less than two months away! Check out all the recent additions to our speaker lineup—we’ll be covering topics including the new wave of AI, innovation in the home, and more on September 27, 2023. Register to join us here! 

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