With one in 54 children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in the United States, the question of how to treat patients diagnosed with the condition has become almost as acute as the prevalence of the condition itself.
This is one of the reasons why Jia Jia Ye and the team from the health startup studio Redesign Health, were able to raise $ 15.6 million in a recent round of funding for the new startup. Springtide Child Development.
A longtime healthcare executive with previous roles at OneMedical and Oscar, Ye and the Redesign Health team started talking two years ago about potential business ideas. The group opted for autism treatment because of what they saw as a clear market need, Ye said.
"The reason this immediately clicked is that the supply / demand imbalance was very clear," Ye said.
Simply put, Springtide combines the concierge medical business model with early childhood care and education businesses like Sylvan Learning to deliver autism care through specialists and a team of registered behavioral technicians.
To ensure that as many people as possible can use Springtide's services, the company accepts both private insurance and Medicaid.
So far, the company has a clinic established in Connecticut that provides both remote and in-person services and plans to launch multiple sites across the Northeast thanks to its $ 15.6 million in funding.
Joins Ye in the design of the company's care facilities and services by Dr. Tiva Pierce, who previously worked at Constellation Health Services, which provides behavioral and physical health care through schools.
Like many companies that had an in-person service model, Springtide had to focus on delivering remote care as the pandemic lockdowns hit the Northeast.
The company charges Medicad $ 46 per hour, and commercial payers will be charged between $ 50 and $ 60 per hour, but the company's services will only cost families their typical co-payment and deductible.
Hiring Medicaid was a priority, Ye said, to increase access to more people who needed it.
According to Ye, families in the United States already spend about $ 17 billion on ABA therapy. And the overall spending on autism-related issues is $ 68 billion, he said.
The funding, which came from Deerfield Management and Optum Ventures, it will be used to expand the footprint and staff of the company, which currently has around 30 employees.
"The rapidly growing market for autism care is highly fragmented and uncoordinated, which creates significant challenges for children and their families who deserve to have access to consistently exceptional quality care," said Julian Harris, MD , Partner of Deerfield. "Springtide offers a downtown interdisciplinary care experience with a technology-enabled wrap-around for families who want their children to receive all care in one environment. With an emphasis on measuring outcomes, we hope Springtide can serve as a platform for care and research, ultimately setting the gold standard in this field. "