Color Health announces new behavioral healthcare solution for public and population health

New acquisition and product expansion will support end-to-end needs to reach, screen, and connect more people to care, faster

BURLINGAME, Calif., Oct. 27, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Color Health today announced a new behavioral healthcare solution and the acquisition of Mood Lifters, a leading group-based mental health company, to expand access to mental health care for organizations tackling public and population health. With these new services, Color is helping public health departments, school districts, and others who care for population health provide behavioral and mental health care at scale and for those in need. 

"The challenges in behavioral health access come from a supply shortage that can be fixed by reimagining the logistics around delivering healthcare – something Color has been doing since our founding nine years ago," said Color CEO Othman Laraki. "Through our experience building highly impactful federal, state, and local programs for public and population health, we know that providing access to care in the context of how people live their everyday lives is the key to creating effective care delivery programs." 

More than 50% of people who need mental health care do not receive it, with even higher rates of unmet need for racial and ethnic minority populations. The median time between the onset of a patient's symptoms and their first treatment is now 11 years. These gaps in care are created and exacerbated by a shortage of skilled providers and access challenges, including cost and logistical hurdles. Color's behavioral health solution creates timely access to behavioral health screening and counseling, embeds care access points and resources directly into neighborhoods and community spaces, is in-network with leading Medicaid and Medicare plans in all 50 states, and delivers multilingual, culturally appropriate care. 

Color is also acquiring Mood Lifters, a clinically validated, group mental health program designed to improve outcomes among adults and youth facing stress, difficult life situations, depression, and anxiety. Mood Lifters uses an evidence-based treatment paradigm developed by Dr. Patricia Deldin and Dr. Cecilia Votta at the University of Michigan. Crucially, groups are led by participants who have completed the course themselves, enabling a sustainable source of new coaches with significantly lower costs than individual teletherapy.

Color's behavioral and mental health solution supports end-to-end needs to reach, screen, and connect more people to care more quickly and efficiently through their health departments, school districts, and managed care organizations, informed by Color's extensive experience with federal, state, and local governments, as well as K-12 school districts. The solution is purpose-built to support organizations like public health departments and schools, by:

• Enabling more efficient screening: This flexible solution integrates into other screenings, including community sites, and allows organizations to catalog, manage, and continuously update local and community resources, as well as connect individuals to those resources for more acute or additional care needs. 
• Providing high-availability access to clinicians, therapists, and coaches: Color's network approach allows access to community tools and acute need escalation within 48 hours. The network of community sites and partners – including coaches, therapists, and licensed psychiatrists – is built to scale and flex to each community's needs. 
• Utilizing a group-based mental health approach: Color provides a cost-effective and community-oriented model of peer-based mental health, built on Mood Lifters' clinically validated platform. This non-clinical support for individuals of all ages has been scientifically demonstrated to improve anxiety and depressive symptoms, including a nearly 50% symptom reduction among participants with moderate to severe anxiety and depression.
• Prioritizing sustainability: Color provides insurance billing infrastructure to enroll and credential providers (including state Medicare and Medicaid plans), billing management, and support for large programs that increases effective capacity.  
• Building for public health and underserved populations: Color's solution can integrate into existing community resources, is HIPAA-compliant, provides support for multiple languages, can be accessed online and offline, and integrates clinical and non-clinical networks representing culturally and ethnically diverse backgrounds. With canvassing and community support, organizations can quickly stand-up community sites at schools, libraries, post offices, and other community spaces.

"At Mood Lifters, we've built a program that reduces the personal and economic burden of stress, depression, and anxiety," said Dr. Patricia Deldin, co-founder and CEO of Mood Lifters. "Now, with Color, we will be able to realize our shared dream of bringing readily available, high-quality, effective, low-cost, evidence-based care to those who really need it, wherever they are and whatever their means."

Color is a complete platform for healthcare delivery, providing the technology, infrastructure, and logistics required to distribute large-scale health initiatives to diverse populations. Color works with businesses, government agencies, schools, and communities to provide equitable, accessible healthcare services. Color supports access for traditionally underserved communities and removes barriers to accessing care, like having to schedule an appointment or provide a home address to get care. By working with public health and community leaders, our model enables screening, counseling, and life-saving treatments to be accessed by more people, wherever they are. For more information about Color, visit www.color.com.

SOURCE Color Health