The Cerebral Crisis- What is next?

In the past week, I have had multiple discussions regarding the disturbing news around Cerebral and its alleged practice of overprescribing ADHD medication.

It is concerning that Cerebral, a leader in telehealth for mental health, is facing such grave accusations.?

If you have not been following, these are the highlights

1. Cerebral is a mental health telemedicine company that offers online care and medication management for anxiety, depression, ADHD, etc.
2. They claim to be the fastest mental health company ever to achieve unicorn status. They have raised over $462 million and achieved a valuation of $4.8 billion in under two years.?
3. Since March, there have been some reports of providers feeling pressured to prescribe stimulants.
4. In April, a former Cerebral exec sued the startup, alleging that it prescribed stimulants to retain patients.

It is too easy to say Cerebral=BAD and end the discussion.?

As is usually the case, I believe the truth is more complex.

Cerebral has been successful as it is solving a real problem- accessibility to ADHD treatment.

Cerebral’s mistake is not necessarily a signal of malice on their part but rather a? flaw in the ADHD treatment process.

I am not a Psychiatrist or a therapist. However, I had the privilege to meet very knowledgeable and caring clinicians in the ADHD space in the past year. One clear input was that the process of treating ADHD is lacking. Mostly, it lacks an objective way to know if the treatment is working. As a result, many patients are under or over-medicated, and over 60% give up and stop treatment.

Naturally, frustrated patients look for other solutions, and many reached out to Cerebral.

People tend to make an effort to improve measurable outcomes, and the only measurable outcome when treating ADHD is financial. The patient’s well-being and progress is a subjective measure that is hard to assess in person and nearly impossible during short virtual interactions.

The result, in this case, seems to be that Cerebral optimized the KPI of financial growth at the expense of the vague customer well-being.

I believe this crisis should not result in making it harder for people with ADHD to get the care they need. Rather it should drive all of us to deal with the root cause. Virtual care is here to stay and has a lot of potential for improving a patient's life considerably.? We need to find ways to make it work. An objective measure of patients' progress will make it possible to provide each patients the care they need and reduce the affects of financial considerations on mental health..? Making QUALITY ADHD care accessible is an important goal that can transform many lives.

At iFocus Health, we are developing a tool to measure the objective effect of treatment for people with ADHD from their homes, using the patient's laptop.