Startups, Telemedicine, Payers

Austin substance abuse telehealth company raises $25 million Series A led by Aetna

With the new funding, MAP Health Management is hoping to more than double the states it operates in and move upstream to other sites of care to help treat substance abuse before it worsens. 

More than 20 million American adults suffer from substance abuse disorders, many of whom face significant long-term hurdles in recovering from their addiction.

MAP Health Management was started in 2011 to help people transition into recovery by using telehealth technology to link patients to peer support staffers as they try to mend relationships, integrate back into their communities and return to work or school.

The company employs 125 people, the bulk of which are trained peer counselors that guide individuals on their continuing medical care, counsel patients and their families and help to address existing behavioral health conditions, which are often comorbid with addiction.

“For a long time there has been essentially an acute care model for the chronic condition of addiction,” said MAP Founder and CEO Jacob Levenson. ” We were founded to provide that post-discharge continuing support.”

Now with a $25 million Series A financing round led by insurer Aetna, the company is hoping to more than double the states it operates in and move upstream to other sites of care to help treat substance abuse before it worsens.

The company’s main customer base has historically been treatment providers who are looking for ways to help to continue to deliver care patients leave the clinic.

Recently though, health plans have been a fast-growing business line, driven by the continuing development of MAP’s capabilities to measure their impact and cost savings, as well as the framing of addiction as a chronic disease.

In one study cited by Levenson, MAP’s peer support network was able to drive a 57 percent reduction in emergency department hospitalizations.

Levenson said in the past two years, the company has grown their partnerships with health plans to be able to offer their product as a covered benefit to 40 million people.

Aetna was the company’s first health plan partner to offer MAP as a covered benefit and decided to come aboard as an investor as a result of the early returns from that relationship and the company’s increasing interest in behavioral health.

Levenson said the hope is to use MAP’s capital infusion to make their service available in states like Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia where the opioid epidemic has been particularly prevalent.

By the end of the year, he estimated that the company will be live in 29 states, more than double their current geographic distribution, and start to pick up patients not just post-acute care settings but also in emergency care locations, primary care clinics and pharmacies.

“These proceeds will put the wind in the sales so that we’re not just working in the addiction treatment channel,” Levenson said. “Right now we’re working with a lot of folks who have already gone to acute care and are more progressed, we want to see what we can do if we start engaging people earlier. The number one factor in recovery is early intervention.”

Picture: claudenakagawa, Getty Images

Shares1
Shares1