Ever hear of Eleos Health?

[LadyHalcyon]

"Eleos Health offers a modern tool for quality-driven therapy. The company uses voice analysis technology to track, view, and act upon in-session analytics without any paperwork. Eleos records, transcribes, and analyzes every session with a HIPAA-compliant mobile app, then provides unique analytics that allow the therapist to better prepare for the next session.
The company’s mission is to empower psychologists and therapists with voice analysis and NLP technologies to measure and improve talk-therapy outcomes."

About - Eleos Health

People first.Technology second. Our Story 1 All of our founders have been touched personally by mental health issues. Each of us has had family members and friends experience the transformative power of quality care, and know the urgency of helping people get back to wellness sooner. Our Mission...

www.eleos.health

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Members don't see this ad.

 

[psych.meout]

"Eleos Health offers a modern tool for quality-driven therapy. The company uses voice analysis technology to track, view, and act upon in-session analytics without any paperwork. Eleos records, transcribes, and analyzes every session with a HIPAA-compliant mobile app, then provides unique analytics that allow the therapist to better prepare for the next session.
The company’s mission is to empower psychologists and therapists with voice analysis and NLP technologies to measure and improve talk-therapy outcomes."

Eleos Health | Start-Up Nation Finder

Eleos Health is a digital health company supporting behavioral healthcare providers in their mission to improve behavioral health outcomes. Eleos

finder.startupnationcentral.org

I'd be very cautious about giving any of these tech companies access to patient data. Just look at the news about Talkspace.

 

[Ollie123]

I have not. I am intrigued, but not in a way that would actually have me use their product.

I've been wanting to use machine learning tools to extract therapeutic alliance measures from sessions transcripts for quite a few years now. Seems doable. Maybe someday it will happen.

 

[beginner2011]

In theory, it sounds really great. Would love to see data like this about in-session utterances, etc.

In practice, I'd be concerned about privacy and the impact on the relationship. Not insurmountably concerned, but I'd want to see some evidence that it didn't have a negative impact and I'd want to know more about their claims of "HIPAA compliance."

 

[LadyHalcyon]

My initial reaction was mainly negative. However, I'm kind of in dystopian head space right now so I'm likely biased. My friend is going to be coding sessions for them. Apparently they pay pretty well.

 

[LadyHalcyon]

Also, I think it's interesting the founder's background is mainly in the Israeli defense Industry, with a specific focus on unmanned aircraft systems. Quite the jump to behavioral health, but what do I know

 

[psych.meout]

Also, I think it's interesting the founder's background is mainly in the Israeli defense Industry, with a specific focus on unmanned aircraft systems. Quite the jump to behavioral health, but what do I know

Well, that doesn't bode well for privacy concerns......

In theory, it sounds really great. Would love to see data like this about in-session utterances, etc.

In practice, I'd be concerned about privacy and the impact on the relationship. Not insurmountably concerned, but I'd want to see some evidence that it didn't have a negative impact and I'd want to know more about their claims of "HIPAA compliance."

Talkspace and those other services also claims to be "HIPAA compliant," yet they've also been caught data-mining therapy sessions and are very clearly a data collection firm using mental health as the means by which to gather said data.

 

[beginner2011]

The group who are putting Lyssn | Intelligent Counseling Recording Platform together seem to be doing something really interesting. The co-author of The Great Psychotherapy Debate (Zac Imel) is part of the team, and the CEO is a clinical psychologist and data wizard whose work I find really impressive. I think the Lyssn product was inspired by motivational interviewing treatment integrity coding, so I'd be very interested in it for my own practice. They're worth keeping an eye on, in my opinion.

 

[futureapppsy2]

Talkspace and those other services also claims to be "HIPAA compliant," yet they've also been caught data-mining therapy sessions and are very clearly a data collection firm using mental health as the means by which to gather said data.

I was curious to the "new" news on this and wow:

At Talkspace, Start-Up Culture Collides With Mental Health Concerns (Published 2020)

The therapy-by-text company made burner phones available for fake reviews and doesn’t adequately respect client privacy, former employees say.

www.nytimes.com

 

[beginner2011]

Whoa, Talkspace sounds like a nightmare.

The company was founded in 2011 by Oren and Roni Frank, an Israeli couple who felt inspired after their relationship was “saved” by marriage counseling. Mr. Frank had a background in marketing, and Ms. Frank was a software developer.

Ms. Frank is the company’s head of clinical services; as of Aug. 6, her LinkedIn page said she had a master’s degree in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy from the New York Graduate School of Psychoanalysis, but she never completed the program.

In 2019, after Talkspace signed a deal with Optum, a unit of the health care giant UnitedHealth, to provide teletherapy to its two million customers, the advocacy group wrote another letter of “alarm” to the A.P.A. Talkspace sued the group for defamation, claiming damages of $40 million. The lawsuit was dismissed for jurisdictional reasons.

 

[AbnormalPsych]

I'd be very cautious about giving any of these tech companies access to patient data. Just look at the news about Talkspace.

The talkspace article posted above was behind a paywall for me. Anyone have any other articles on these platforms to share? It was only a matter of time before this stuff was going on and becoming public.

 

[futureapppsy2]

The talkspace article posted above was behind a paywall for me. Anyone have any other articles on these platforms to share? It was only a matter of time before this stuff was going on and becoming public.

Here’s a non-paywalled article with some but not all of the same content.

Former employees claim Talkspace mined therapy transcripts for marketing

Multiple former Talkspace employees claim the therapy app improperly uses the data of its users.

www.engadget.com

 

[LadyHalcyon]

I was curious to the "new" news on this and wow:

At Talkspace, Start-Up Culture Collides With Mental Health Concerns (Published 2020)

The therapy-by-text company made burner phones available for fake reviews and doesn’t adequately respect client privacy, former employees say.

www.nytimes.com

Yeah I read that not too long ago. Imo that idea was a mess from the beginning because the creators didn't seem to understand or account for the mechanism of change underlying therapeutic improvement. Is it beneficial for a client to have access to their therapist at all times? If the therapist can't respond quickly will that lead to resentment and trigger feelings of abandonment? Also, all the privacy/HIPAA issues AND don't even get me started on the gig economy and the negative impact it has had on clinicians.

I'm sure there are plenty of ways technology can (and already is) improving therapeutic outcomes. I think the majority of my fears relate to corporations funding research and an overemphasis on efficacy vs effectiveness. When these types of startups pop up, I always wonder where their money came from and how that will influce the future of psychology. Thanks citizens united!

 

[psych.meout]

The talkspace article posted above was behind a paywall for me. Anyone have any other articles on these platforms to share? It was only a matter of time before this stuff was going on and becoming public.

Just open the article in an incognito or private window and the paywall will go away.

 

[tr]

I have not. I am intrigued, but not in a way that would actually have me use their product.

I've been wanting to use machine learning tools to extract therapeutic alliance measures from sessions transcripts for quite a few years now. Seems doable. Maybe someday it will happen.

Yes I've had the same thought and gone so far as to propose, but not had it funded. I thought it would be a fantastic resource. Unfortunately funders did not.

 

[deleted343839]

The company uses voice analysis technology to track, view, and act upon in-session analytics without any paperwork. Eleos records, transcribes, and analyzes every session with a HIPAA-compliant mobile app

My first reaction: no effing way.

And, it bears repeating, no technology is "HIPAA-compliant" in the static or fixed sense. Technologies can enable users to follow the law as spelled out by HIPAA but none of them guarantee compliance with the law.

 

[LadyHalcyon]

Anyone else have fears that the end game will be tying reimbursement rates to outcome measures?

 

[PsyDr]

Anyone else have fears that the end game will be tying reimbursement rates to outcome measures?

It would be illegal for them to tie your payment to how effective you are. If they tried to make that happen, every spinal surgeon, drug rehabilitation center, bariatric surgeon, endocrinologist, palliative care doc, hospice, nursing home, etc, in the nation would lose it. And likely file suit.

Attempts to limit treatment based upon diagnosis is a thing that’s been a thing since the late 80s. Admittedly, psych hospitals and psychotherapy were being wildly misused at the time (E.g., patients being admitted to hospitals, that featured tennis courts, for 30-60 days for an adjustment disorder). If you look around some crappy insurances and some worker’s compensation insurances have guidelines will cap the number of CPT units per diagnosis. Not much to be done about that, aside from going through your contractually defines appeals process.

I believe the end game is to move things to an online format, and then reduce reimbursement based upon the delivery method. There is a long standing precedent of this, from CMS. Inpatient work pays less than outpatient work, because your overhead is technically less.

Insurance has also tried peer support (i.e., other psych patients giving advice), apps, and that rogerian chat bot thing from the 90s.

I think one of the substantial strengths of our profession is the face to face nature of it. Wanting to talk to someone when we are in a bad place is an incredibly human thing.

 

[LadyHalcyon]

It would be illegal for them to tie your payment to how effective you are. If they tried to make that happen, every spinal surgeon, drug rehabilitation center, bariatric surgeon, endocrinologist, palliative care doc, hospice, nursing home, etc, in the nation would lose it. And likely file suit.

Attempts to limit treatment based upon diagnosis is a thing that’s been a thing since the late 80s. Admittedly, psych hospitals and psychotherapy were being wildly misused at the time (E.g., patients being admitted to hospitals, that featured tennis courts, for 30-60 days for an adjustment disorder). If you look around some crappy insurances and some worker’s compensation insurances have guidelines will cap the number of CPT units per diagnosis. Not much to be done about that, aside from going through your contractually defines appeals process.

I believe the end game is to move things to an online format, and then reduce reimbursement based upon the delivery method. There is a long standing precedent of this, from CMS. Inpatient work pays less than outpatient work, because your overhead is technically less.

Insurance has also tried peer support (i.e., other psych patients giving advice), apps, and that rogerian chat bot thing from the 90s.

I think one of the substantial strengths of our profession is the face to face nature of it. Wanting to talk to someone when we are in a bad place is an incredibly human thing.

I've officially decided I'm not taking insurance. I would rather incorporate pro-bono work into my practice.