Brightside Health partners with Medicaid, Medicare

Mental healthcare provider Brightside Health has announced its plans to provide services to Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries. By partnering with Centene, Optum, Lucet, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, and others Brightside Health is extending its reach to provide in-network mental health services to an additional 50 million people, bringing its total covered lives to well over 100 million.  

This expansion aims to bridge the existing gap in access and quality of mental health services for Medicaid and Medicare recipients. Historically, there has been a severe shortage of telemental health providers willing to accept Medicaid and Medicare, leaving many in these programs struggling to access timely and effective mental health care.  

Medicaid, the single largest payer for mental health services in the country, has faced significant challenges in ensuring adequate mental health support for its beneficiaries. One in four Medicare beneficiaries lives with mental illness, yet only 40-50% receive treatment, according to data from The Commonwealth Fund. 

“The ongoing mental health crisis places an increasing and disproportionate burden on Medicaid and Medicare recipients, making it extremely hard for participants in these programs to access timely and effective mental health care,” said Brad Kittredge, co-founder and CEO of Brightside Health in a statement. “With this expansion, we’re addressing a major gap in our healthcare system and ensuring that millions of Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries will be able to receive the timely and high-quality mental health care they need.” 

Brightside Health’s comprehensive range of services, including personalized psychiatry, therapy, and Crisis Care for those with elevated suicide risk, will be available under these new partnerships.  

“Crisis Care is a first-of-its kind national telehealth program designed to treat individuals with elevated risk of suicide. Individuals considering suicide can’t wait weeks or months to be seen by a provider,” said Mimi Winsberg, MD, Chief Medical Officer of Brightside Health. “Crisis Care is specifically designed to ensure this high-risk population receives timely, structured, high-quality care – accessing treatment in 48 hours or less.” 

According to a recent study from Brightside, telemental health can be effective for those making under $30k a year, though the study also notes that higher income individuals “do better” in terms of health outcomes and symptoms reduction. Another study showed that telemental health platforms lead to similar health outcomes in both younger and older patients, suggesting that Medicare patients will benefit from Brightside’s platform.  

“It’s common to assume that seniors are slower to adopt technology and, on average, less savvy in using it. The reality is that Brightside Health has worked to ensure that our experience has been simple from the beginning and has been serving seniors for years,” said Kittredge. “Our team is continuing to study this population; we recently found they view telehealth as a helpful resource since much of this population is homebound – either for health reasons or by choice – so having a virtual option means there’s one less hurdle to accessing healthcare.” 

This expansion is monumental, considering that few telemental health providers have been willing to accept Medicare, and even fewer have opened their doors to Medicaid recipients. With these partnerships, Brightside Health is poised to become a lifeline for those in need, offering accessible and high-quality mental health care to some of the most vulnerable populations. 

In addition to these recent developments, Brightside Health has also forged a partnership with maternal digital health platform e-Lōvu Health earlier this year to offer crucial mental health support to women during and after pregnancy. 

“We have always been committed to treating those with more severe mental health needs, and serving vulnerable populations,” Winsberg said. “The expansion into Medicaid and Medicare is a natural evolution of that commitment, and core to Brightside’s growth strategy as we continue on our mission to deliver life-saving care to everyone who needs it.”