STAT+: ‘Stung’ by Pear’s bankruptcy, a state Medicaid program pauses on digital therapeutics
"It would be hard for me to convince my leadership to take that leap again so soon," Oklahoma Medicaid official Terry Cothran said of digital therapeutics deals after being burned…
WASHINGTON — After getting burned by the high-profile implosion of a digital health company, a senior official at Oklahoma’s Medicaid program said the state would be hesitant to buy into similar products again.
“I don’t want to say we’re not receptive,” Terry Cothran, the senior pharmacy director at Oklahoma Health Care Authority said at the Digital Therapeutics Alliance’s summit this week. “We’re just very, very cautious. It would be hard for me to convince my leadership to take that leap again so soon.”
In 2022, Oklahoma announced it had entered into a value-based agreement to offer Pear Therapeutics’ app-based treatments for substance use disorder and opioid use disorder to Medicaid enrollees. Cothran explained that under the deal, Oklahoma made an upfront payment for the products, called reSET and reSET-O, and would “measure hospital and ER visits on the back end” with the understanding that Pear would reimburse the state if the products didn’t save money.
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