From left: Vincere Health CEO and co-founder Shalen De Silva and company president and co-founder Jake Keteyian.
Smoking rates have fallen by two-thirds in the decades since surgeons warned of the consequences of smoking more than 50 years ago.But today about One in seven, or nearly 13 percentU.S. adults still smoke, and smoking rates remain high among low-income populations.
Adults on Medicaid smoke more than twice as likely as those with private insurance—nearly 24% compared to 10.5%. But Vincere Health co-founders Shalen De Silva and Jake Keteyian say that despite the need, Medicaid people are underserved and don’t get enough help to quit smoking.
The Allston, Massachusetts-based healthtech startup is looking to change that. Specifically, its goal is to help those on Medicaid — and other vulnerable or underserved patients — not only quit smoking, but make other behavioral changes to improve their overall health.
Vincere is one of the companies participating in the Pitch Perfect competition MedCity Investment Conference in Chicago. It was selected as the winner of the Care Coordination and Value-Based Care Selling Tracks by judges who are active investors.
Jane Rowe An investor at DaVita Venture Group and one of three judges who said what impressed her Is “Vincere’s focus on underserved behavioral change among underserved populations.”
She added that she found De Silva’s speech cohesive and engaging.
“What we appreciate about Vincere is… how compelling and easy it is to express how compelling and easy their work is on smoking cessation and behavior change in the Medicaid population,” Rho said.
Vincere’s platform offers everything from financial incentives to personalized coaching. The aim is to help people cope with the stress in their lives and make lifestyle changes to improve well-being, while giving patients the best chance of quitting smoking.
Wanting to make an impact on the underserved is what Vincere CEO de Silva said was really at the heart of his shift from investment banker to working with underserved populations. He and Vincere President Keteyian first began discussing their ideas for Vincere Health at the Harvard Innovation Lab, where they founded the company in 2019.
Keteyian has worked with payers, including Medicaid, in the past on health IT consultations. He knows that behavioral health needs are significant for this population. But he said the solutions available to people who rely on public insurance plans don’t match.
“Patterns of care and outcomes in the field are sub-par,” Keteyian said.
Private insurance usually pays more to providers than Medicaid. But De Silva and Keyeyian are convinced they can not only help Medicaid and other underserved patients, but also allow businesses to thrive. Much of this confidence comes from what they see as their solution’s successful approach to helping a large patient population make difficult behavioral changes.
A unique aspect of Vincere’s behavior change program is that the company built what De Silva describes as sophisticated “mini-reward/push machines” to work in tandem with its human care team.
“Our clinicians can very simply define a personalized regime of daily breath tests, health assessments, and simultaneous coaching/consultation calls, and assign custom reminders and conditional cash rewards to motivate adherence,” he said.
Rewards range from $50 to $300. These external incentives are designed to help participants stick with the program until they realize the health benefits of changing behaviors, including quitting smoking, and become more intrinsically motivated to stick with it, he said.
De Silva stressed that the company’s focus is not just on helping people quit smoking.
“We call ourselves the quit-smoking company because we don’t want to boil the oceans and there’s still a lot of work to do in this vertical alone. But the way we do it is very comprehensive,” de Silva said. “Our clinicians can meet the needs of a large number of patients. ”
Clinicians build relationships with patients that allow them to better understand their patients’ stressors and help them improve everything from sleep and eating patterns to physical activity.
Although there are fewer solutions for Medicaid patients, there are other organizations that serve this population. healthyFor example, DaVita’s Jane Rho says a company she invests in is also applying so-called behavioral economics, using economic incentives to help people make impactful health changes, including quitting smoking.
But she sees ample opportunity in the space for startups such as Vincere, and likes the company’s approach.
“I think financial incentives are a really interesting way to build that relationship,” Rho said. “Once you have that focus, I think it makes sense to be able to leverage an inherent understanding of patient motivations and stressors, especially for more Difficult behavior changes. “
Vincere’s clients include Medicaid managed care organizations, certain self-funded employers and state agencies. De Silva said the company was able to put its fees at risk and get paid when it was able to verify that participants quit smoking.
“Pricing depends on the population, the intensity of the project and the level of risk we take,” he said. “In some cases, when we risk the outcome, each participant can earn up to $2,000.”
Vincere has raised $4.3 million to date. These include a $3 million seed round in 2021, a $900,000 pre-seed round in 2020, and a $400,000 angel round in 2019. The startup hopes to raise more capital in 2022 and beyond, but has yet to set specific targets for that, de Silva said.
Going forward, he believes Vincere’s holistic approach will help it differentiate itself from other companies and reach more underserved patients.
“We’re trying to address the core issues of how they deal with their day-to-day lives and instill trust in the health system that they lack and make what we offer super accessible,” De Silva said. “It’s at our core.”
Photo: Vincere Health
