In our quest to “power smart data,” we love to take on new challenges. When the opportunity to partner with myStrength (a digital Behavioral Modification Tool) and the state of Missouri arose, with the goal of assessing the tool’s ability to truly improve mental health by way of Medicaid mental healthcare cost analyses, we could not pass it down.

As published in the Journal of Medical Economics, this claims-based analysis sought to prove an often challenging aim: the ROI associated with a digital behavioral health initiative. To accomplish this, PROPENSITY4 developed the integrated analysis framework for assessment, and partnered with myStrength, the Missouri Department of Mental Health, the Missouri Coalition for Community Behavioral Health and the Missouri Foundation for Health and analyzed both physical and behavioral mental healthcare costs amongst Medicaid Claims.

To do so, we analyzed data across 799 users of the tool and 719 control participants, matched according to key variables related to behavioral health status, claim types, and cost settings. Our thoughtfully designed analysis was able to prove a nearly 5:1 ROI with utilization of the myStrength tool. The PROPENSITY4 team proved that the costs were $382/year lower for each myStrength user than for a non-user, with 75% of the savings coming from high-cost, avoidable care such as ER visits and inpatient admissions, and the other 25% from reduced outpatient and therapy expenditures.

By proving the ROI related to cost burden improvement in the patient group who utilized the myStrength tool, this partnership sought to demonstrate how added proactive behavioral health tools could both improve patient care and show a financial impact to the state, which estimates a $250 million cost burden in direct medical costs related to untreated mental health and substance use disorders.

This study embodies how PROPENSITY4’s advanced data mining methodologies transform Big Anonymous Patient Level Data (APLD) assets into robust health economics and patient outcomes insights.

Are you seeking to advance APLD health economics and outcomes insights? Please contact us!
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