Patrick Kennedy

And I would say, even though I emphasize the medical and employee assistance programs, all of that, because they're all very important, I believe the spiritual element is at the core of successful treatment for people suffering from these illnesses.

When we passed parity and we did the ACA, we set into motion a whole series of chain reactions.

Among those chain reactions is this desire to create value-based purchasing and underwriting, which really starts to put providers into a whole new mode of thinking about how to keep their patients healthy.

as opposed to just checking the box every time they come in and they need sick care.

And that's so helpful because frankly, with mental health, that's the secret sauce for overall total cost of care.

Management is addressing something that's never been touched, which is underlying comorbidities of depression, anxiety.

So I would say that that's very, very exciting and is happening now.

I think that

The real goal for us is pay for what gives us the biggest punch.

Investing in social determinants, investing in mental health and total well-being,

That's going to keep people independent and leading a higher quality of life and reducing the number of times they go to the ER, keeping them more compliant with all of their healthcare needs.

So there'll be much more adherence to other medical protocols.

I mean, it is just positive all the way through.

And rather than me saying you've got to cover mental health, which is what we did through the parity law,

it's a lot more effective if payers say, we'll make more money if we reduce total cost of care.

And guess what?

Mental health is the key to doing it.

That's a nice thing that we're seeing how the market forces are aligning to make our message salient.

We've been advocating, advocating, advocating, but there's nothing like that.

interest in the payer world, in the provider world to start focusing on this as the new frontier of our time.