During a featured session at Becker’s Spring Payer Issues Roundtable in April, leaders from Calm Health and behavioral health provider Magellan Health shared a blueprint for marrying clinical rigor with digital engagement to expand access to behavioral healthcare.
Chris Mosunic, PhD, chief clinical officer at Calm, and Caroline Carney, MD chief medical officer of Magellan Health, made a case for partnerships that balance storytelling and science, scale and personalization.
Below are four takeaways from the conversation.
Note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.
1. Calm is becoming a digital health platform for everyone
Calm began as a meditation and sleep app and has since grown into a comprehensive mental health company with digital tools designed to support diverse needs and populations across the full spectrum of care
“At Calm, we’re asking what are the populations that are underserved? How do we create programs just for them? And how are these programs actually going to be helpful and engage them,” Dr. Mosunic said, adding that Calm Health now includes validated assessments, subclinical programming and integration with partner care teams.
2. From engagement to clinical impact
Digital apps must do more than attract users — they must keep them and support meaningful clinical improvement. “An app for the sake of an app is nothing,” Dr. Carney said. “But an app that has the right content like Calm and can be a force multiplier can make a big difference.”
Magellan also uses a natural-language-progressing-based app for suicide detection and dynamic assessments based on symptom severity. This allows case managers to intervene in real time.
3. Reaching the underserved means building for specificity
The speakers agreed that digital health must evolve beyond one-size-fits-all solutions. “You can’t sit in an ivory tower and come up with what a certain population needs,” Dr. Carney said, sharing how Magellan adapted certain tools with custom imagery and language geared toward the military population.
4. True integration demands interoperability
Effective partnerships hinge on data sharing. Dr. Carney stressed that data needs to be actionable and consistently funneled into the hands of care managers.
Calm’s model includes bidirectional referrals and data integration with Magellan’s network, allowing members to flow between self-guided tools and higher levels of care as needed.
