HelloJoy

HelloJoy makes mental health measurement easier by helping physicians monitor their patients. We combine clinical assessments with passive behavioral sensing.

The problem
Suicide rates have risen by 25% since 1999. Of all people who die by suicide, 75% suffer from depression. In total, 16.2 million adults in the U.S. experienced a major depressive episode in the past year (300 million worldwide).

Through decades of research, we know using measurement-based care to treat depression works. Measurement-based care (MBC) is the practice of basing clinical care on patient data collected throughout treatment.  Patients with depression are 2.5x more likely to reach remission (and do so at a faster rate) when providers practice MBC. Tong Guo, et. al.

However, collecting patient data between appointments is challenging. Providers don’t have the platform to efficiently contact patients. Providers don’t have the time to collect and assess data. As a result, only 18% do it.

Our solution
We make measurement easier by helping physicians monitor their patients. We do this by managing billing, reimbursement, and the patient experience. We deliver actionable clinical information back to the provider along with a % of all reimbursement.

Through our mobile app, patients check in daily (takes ~30 seconds) and complete clinical assessments. We also passively monitor movement, physical activity, and sleep patterns. We use machine learning and combine these data sources to help patients better understand their illness.

Our provider portal allows for real time tracking and monitoring. Providers can access patient reports from our web portal or through PDF downloads.

Our business model
For the first time, real time monitoring is covered by insurance under CPT 96127 (and other codes).

For each patient, this code represents $288/year in reimbursement potential ($6 per assessment, up to 4x/month). We assess patients on behalf of providers, share the results, and bill the patient’s insurance. This code is widely accepted by Medicare and all major insurance companies and we expect to keep 30% of all collections, or $86/year per patient.

There are also additional CMS billing codes that apply that we can use in the future (CPT 96103 - $28/assessment, CPT 99091 - $60/month).

This is a huge opportunity
Using only a single billing code & focusing solely on depression, this is a $3.83B opportunity. There are 16.2M people with depression in the U.S. Of which, 82% are not receiving MBC. We can provide that care for $24/patient/month.

It is important that the economics make sense, but what’s equally exciting to us is the potential this can have on health outcomes. Imagine if 2.5x as many likely people being treated for depression reached remission. And imagine if they reached this point at a significantly quicker rate! HelloJoy can help patients around the world feel better faster. In doing so, we will also reduce the costs associated with depression, which is the largest source of disability worldwide.

Managed billing

Others have charged providers a monthly fee and left billing/reimbursement up to them, which means more work for the provider.

By handling billing and returning a portion of reimbursement, HelloJoy incentivizes providers and makes it easier to practice measurement-based care.

Behavioral sensing

While the PHQ-9 et. al are clinically valid instruments, they do not provide continuous, unbiased measurement. By using phone sensor data to measure location, movement, exercise, and sleep patterns, we can change this. We see this as the future of mental health measurement and are excited to bring it to fruition.

In today's world, smartphones are more ubiquitous than clean water, indoor plumbing, and stable electricity. By 2020, there will be 6 billion devices being used across the world. We use smartphones to efficiently measure and assess patients on behalf of their physician

Equally as important is the data that comes from these smartphones. We can discover new patterns within this data using machine learning which will ultimately improve health outcomes.

Clinical Validation Study for Behavioral Sensor Signals

We're talking to a few research institutions about kicking off a pilot study to measure how behavioral sensor data (location, movement, exercise, and sleep) is correlative/predictive of depression outcomes

Roll out initial pilot with Health System(s)

We've received strong interest from a number of Health Systems who want to use HelloJoy to make it easier for physicians to practice measurement-based care.

Raise initial round of capital

We’re raising $1.5M to capture market share quickly. We hope to close this round by Q4 2018.

Our platform gets better as more people use it. In order to build a health system that learns over time, we have to start with proper measurement. We're making this easier for providers and patients.

Our mission is to reduce the suicide rate by making measurement-based care easy and free for providers.

We're starting by going directly to consumers. Our team has experience building, selling, and scaling consumer software, having build, launched and deployed consumer-facing software that has reached over 2 million consumers worldwide in the past.

We're taking a bottom-up approach, reaching patients directly first and using them as a tool to reach providers and health systems. We're doing this because we're focused on first and foremost building a solutions that patients want to use and get value from, which will in turn improve the lives of providers.

Our solution is currently in private beta. We have 60 people using it so far and have ~1000 people on a waitlist ready to download. We also have a lead-generation/content-based product (mental health chatbot) which has been used by 80,000 people and has 2000 new users signing up each week. We'll use this as a lead generation tool for our platform once we launch publicly.

We currently have ~1000 people on a waitlist to download HelloJoy. This waitlist has been growing 20% month over month since we announced it, all through word of mouth. 

In 12 months, we hope to have 2300 providers on our platform using HelloJoy to measure nearly 50,000 patients collectively. By year 3, we expect this number to rise to nearly 50,000 providers serving over 2 million collective patients.

We believe the need for our solution is huge and our team has the experience to build/scale it.

Our team has a unique combination of expertise in software engineering, human-centered product design, and clinical psychology.

Danny, our CEO formerly founded Companion (http://companionapp.io), which now has over 2 million users. Most recently, Joe led a team of iOS engineers at Trunk Club (acquired by Nordstrom) building software to support hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue per year. Over the past 10+ years, Russell has held research positions at Brown, Harvard, Northeastern, and more.

For the first time, real time monitoring is covered by insurance under CPT 96127 (and other codes).

For each patient, this code represents $288/year in reimbursement potential ($6 per assessment, up to 4x/month). We assess patients on behalf of providers, share the results, and bill the patient’s insurance. This code is widely accepted by Medicare and all major insurance companies and we expect to keep 30% of all collections, or $86/year per patient.

There are also additional CMS billing codes that apply that we can use in the future (CPT 96103 - $28/assessment, CPT 99091 - $60/month).

Over the long term, we also see a large opportunity to work with pharmaceutical companies. We'll be collecting rich behavioral and clinical data on millions of patients. 

Access & Network

First and foremost, we're applying to Solve to join the Solve community, attend events, and learn from experts in their field. We value the importance of connecting with people who are smarter than us in many ways and learning from them, collaborating with them, and partnering with them to make mental healthcare more accessible and affordable. We believe Solve can greatly help us achieve this.

Grand Funding

It's no secret that we're bootstrapped. While we're proud that we can do a lot with a little, we need money to expand operations and grow more quickly.

Collecting reimbursement

While we feel confident in CPT 96127, there is some uncertainty around CPT 96103 and CPT 99091. The guidelines around these codes are evolving rapidly (in a positive way). We'll need to keep an eye on this and work with payors to ensure that our product aligns with as many codes as possible over the long term.

Clinical validity

While the clinical assessments we deliver through our mobile app are already evidence-based, we need to prove out the validity of the behavioral sensors prior to implementing these in a healthcare setting. We're partnering with researchers to validate these.