Groups Recover Together CEO Details Plan to Expand Value-Based MAT Model Into 5 New States
Behavioral Health Business
May 14, 2021
While many behavioral health providers have ambitions to enter into value-based reimbursement contracts, relatively few have managed to secure them. And even fewer have managed to build their models entirely around value-based care.
But then there’s Groups Recover Together, a group-based medication-assisted treatment (MAT) provider, which has done just that.
Founded in 2014 and headquartered in Burlington, Massachusetts, Groups treats opioid use disorder (OUD) patients out of more than 70 locations across 12 states, though it temporarily switched to all virtual care amid the coronavirus.
Rather than using private pay or fee-for-service models, Groups’ business is all performance-based. It has more than 70 value-based contracts nationwide with individual health plans in the commercial, Medicaid and Medicare spaces. Those arrangements allow Groups to provide a bundle of wraparound services in addition to MAT, which it delivers in supportive group settings.
The model has helped keep 65% to 75% of Groups’ members in treatment at month six, versus 25% to 30% in traditional MAT models. Plus, it recently scored the company $60 million in a Series C funding round led by Oak HC/FT, who joins other big-name investors such as Optum Ventures and Kaiser Permanente Ventures.
Behavioral Health Business recently connected with CEO Colleen Nicewicz to discuss how the funding will help Groups expand into nearly half a dozen new states and enhance its technology capabilities by years’ end. Nicewicz also shared which new markets the company is targeting, how it succeeds in value-based care and more.