After achieving promising results in its own behavioral health program, Horizon Healthcare Services looks to help health plans and systems do the same through its suite of solutions.
The solutions, which were Announced last week, coming from Newark, New Jersey, based novawell, the behavioral health affiliate of Horizon Healthcare Services. The company has four offerings for health plans and health systems:
- NovaClinical, which provides care management, utilization management, clinical quality improvement, and member navigation services.
- NovaConnect, a virtual gateway to adult and pediatric behavioral health solutions.
- NovaCommunityCare, which is for people with serious mental illness and/or substance use disorder.
- NovaNetwork, which helps health plans improve their behavioral health network.
These solutions came from Horizon’s own success in creating a behavioral health program. Horizon provides integrated care, which means it addresses the patient’s entire health, rather than just a specific condition. You also outsource your services by treating the conditions of people within your organization, rather than outsourcing them to other providers.
“Everything we do is centered around a totally integrated approach to people,” Suzanne Kunis, NovaWell’s president and CEO, said in an interview. “So someone with diabetes who also has depression should be treated as the same person. You have to look at them with their physical health problems, mental health problems, and most importantly, their social problems, their social determinants.”
Horizon’s program began in a single New Jersey county and has grown to work in 18 of New Jersey’s 21 counties. In the 2,000 patients who have gone through his program, there has been a 50% reduction in inpatient admissions, a 27% reduction in ER visits, and a 20% reduction in the total cost of attention, Kunis said.
“If we can do this here and people get great results, we can do it anywhere because everyone is facing the same issues,” Kunis said. “That’s why NovaWell was born. Now we are taking it out and going all over the country and talking to the health plans to do the same.”
These services are needed as the US grapples with a major mental health crisis and behavioral health provider shortage, Kunis said.
“The existing options just aren’t working,” he said. “So we want to make sure we do more than just maintain the status quo if we’re ever going to make any headway to help people.”
Kunis’ initial goal in launching the solution suite is to get at least two to three contracts signed with NovaWell over the next year. But ultimately, he hopes the show can really transform the behavioral health space.
“It’s really about helping change the landscape and getting people to understand the value of integrated care,” he said.
Image: Benjavisa, Getty Images
.
