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Autism diagnosis rates are spiking, and providers increasingly see technology as a means to increase access to applied behavioral analysis services in underserved communities.<\/p>\n

Spooked by Elemy<\/h2>\n
Telehealth therapy can be more efficient, said Jeff Beck, CEO of Richmond, Virginia-based virtual applied behavioral analysis company AnswersNow. While many in-person clinics recommend 20-40 hours per week of applied behavioral analysis therapy, AnswersNow only asks for four hours, Beck said. Working with remote therapists also means no waitlist, he said.<\/p>\n
AnswersNow offers care in Virginia and Georgia and many of its patients are Medicaid enrollees, Beck said. AnswersNow is looking carefully at expanding because it wants to preserve quality, he said. According to Beck, other companies that attempted to \u201cblitz scale\u201d applied behavioral analysis therapy have experienced difficulties that reflect poorly on the sector at large.<\/p>\n
Elemy, for instance, encountered problems after making a splash and attracting more than $320 million in venture funding. Last year, the Miami-based company underwent four rounds of layoffs and cut off services without giving three months\u2019 notice. Business Insider reported last month that the company is planning to abandon its autism services, which founder and CEO Yury Yakubchyk denied in an email to Modern Healthcare’s Digital Health Business & Technology. Applied behavioral analysis continues to account for 100% of the Elemy’s revenue, he wrote.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, observing Elemy made Ellen Herlacher, a principal at venture firm LRVHealth, reluctant to back virtual applied behavioral analysis companies, she said. \u201cThere was a disconnect between the intention of the company and its ability to actually deliver,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat needs to happen is these businesses to stabilize in a way that also maintains high-quality care.\u201d<\/p>\n
Health insurance companies are required to cover applied behavioral analysis services in person and virtually and are developing standards of care. Costs can reach $60,000 a year, according to the CDC. But the mandate to cover remote care has created a market for low-quality providers and high clinician turnover, said Yagnesh Vadgama, vice president of autism clinical care services at the insurer Magellan Health.<\/p>\n
Technology can be part of autism care and inform practices that lead to better clinical standards, but isn’t a solution unto itself, Vadgama said. Magellan Health is attempting to apply value-based models for these providers and will use its own set of clinical outcomes to determine reimbursement, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe just have to be cognizant of \u2018What is that technological application going to do to advance the life of the of the autistic individual?\u2019 If it\u2019s only going to do something on the margins or there’s no outcomes that are going to be associated with it, that’s something that we have to really weigh,\u201d Vadgama said. \u201cWhat I worry about with technology is that we miss the human element of what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\n Gabriel Perna<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Skip to main content Getty Images\/iStock photo Autism diagnosis rates are spiking, and providers increasingly see technology as a means to increase access to applied behavioral analysis services in underserved communities. Rising autism diagnoses are causing increased demand for applied behavioral analysis, a therapy also known as ABA that provides one-to-one services primarily for children<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":628101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4936,33745],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-autism","category-providers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}