Last week, NeuroFlow brought together healthcare leaders from across the industry for the 2025 NeuroFlow Summit, a two-day gathering focused on turning complexity into clarity in behavioral health. This year’s theme, “Connecting the Dots,” reflected our shared mission to bridge fragmented data, siloed systems, and diverse perspectives to drive measurable impact across the healthcare ecosystem.

With attendees from health systems, payers, and behavioral health providers, the Summit showcased how the healthcare landscape is rapidly evolving. Here are the key takeaways that emerged from our discussions on the future of behavioral health.

The Brain Economy: A New Framework for Health Investment

Kana Enomoto, Director of Brain Health at the McKinsey Institute, opened the Summit with a transformative perspective on behavioral health’s role in our broader economy. She introduced the concept of “brain capital” – the collective cognitive and emotional resources that drive productivity, innovation, and economic growth. Enomoto argues that behavioral health is not a cost center, but a critical investment in human potential and economic resilience. 

Kana Enomoto, Director of Brain Health, McKinsey Institute

According to McKinsey research, brain health conditions impact 626 million disability-affected life years globally, representing a quarter of the total global health burden. Yet the opportunity is equally compelling. If we could achieve the “90/90/90 vision” – where 90% of individuals are screened for mental and substance use disorders, 90% of those individuals receive evidence-based treatment, and 90% of those being treated can manage their symptoms – we could realize $1.9 trillion in GDP impact.

Gaining the necessary investment in behavioral health can often be a challenge. In other Summit sessions, we discussed how better actuarial models, which integrate behavioral health risk into the model, can empower healthcare organizations to not only identify the costs associated with untreated behavioral health conditions, but the ROI of addressing these risks upstream.

Behavioral Health Integration Lessons from the Field

A key focus of the Summit was to highlight real-world success stories from industry leaders and provide actionable takeaways to our audience. Through a variety of sessions, we heard from leaders at Intermountain Health, Emory Healthcare, ChristianaCare, and Independence Blue Cross about their journeys toward integrated care and critical lessons learned. 

During a panel focused on the evolution of Intermountain Health’s integrated behavioral health care model, Tammer Attallah, Executive Clinical Director of Behavioral Health, emphasized a crucial lesson: “It’s not delivering behavioral health in primary care – it’s delivering primary care for behavioral health needs.” This distinction proved pivotal in their success. Intermountain focused on removing friction and supporting providers who are not specialized in behavioral health with the tools and confidence they needed to ask the right questions.

From Left to Right: John Schwartz, NeuroFlow; Tammer Attallah, Intermountain Health; Malia Davis, Intermountain Health; Jake Sangster, Intermountain Ventures

Seamlessly integrating data collection and care pathways into the provider EHR is also critical, explained Dr. Brandon Kitay, Director of Behavioral Health Integration at Emory Healthcare during a client spotlight session. “Our goal is to make it frictionless to move from physical to behavioral health care at Emory,” he said.

To do that, Emory is in the process of migrating its providers to a single EHR. This will allow the health system to more quickly identify and route patients to the right level of care at the right time. “Our goal over the next three years is to create closed loop, end-to-end solutions to identify, triage, and navigate patients,” said Dr. Kitay.

In a panel on maternal mental health care, Dr. Malina Spirito, Director of the Center for Women’s Emotional Wellness at ChristianaCare, reiterated the importance of identifying behavioral health risk early. “Early intervention is key. Before intervention comes education,” said Dr. Spirito, whose team is leveraging NeuroFlow to educate maternity patients in all care settings about the challenges they may face and provide tools to support them.

Richard Snyder, EVP and Chief Operating Officer, Independence Blue Cross

Ultimately, technology- and data-enabled integrated care works, as Dr. Rich Snyder, EVP and Chief Operating Officer at Independence Blue Cross shared in his keynote session. The health plan chose to work with NeuroFlow because it wanted a solution that could “connect everything,” specifically, the health plan’s sophisticated data infrastructure with its network of behavioral health providers. After implementing this connected approach, Independence Blue Cross lowered the use of inpatient services significantly, while increasing outpatient usage. As a result, they achieved $121 PMPM Medicare savings and $104 PMPM commercial savings, while increasing remission rates for depression and anxiety. 

The Power of Data-Driven Analytics

One of the most compelling themes throughout the Summit was the transformative potential of behavioral health analytics. Jeremy Kreyling, NeuroFlow’s SVP of Healthcare Informatics, shared how the company’s analytics solution, BHIQ, is helping health plans and systems move beyond intuition to evidence-based population health management.

The challenge is significant: health plans spent a combined $250 billion on behavioral health services in 2024, yet many feel they’re “flying blind” when it comes to understanding utilization patterns and outcomes. When NeuroFlow has asked payers questions like, “Do you know who in your population likely has undiagnosed behavioral health conditions,” many couldn’t answer.

As Kreyling explained, “This isn’t a behavioral health data challenge – it’s a behavioral health analytics challenge. You have the data necessary to answer these questions; it sits in EHRs, claims, and care management data.”

Jeremy Kreyling, SVP of Healthcare Informatics, NeuroFlow

NeuroFlow helps health plans and systems address this problem through its analytics solution BHIQ, which aggregates and analyzes claims, EHR and other client data sets to answer key questions about the behavioral health population and network. Armed with these insights, healthcare organizations can focus their resources on the right areas, ensuring medically complex members are getting effective, quality behavioral health care. 

“We have the technology and data that can provide insights to our workforce so that we can triage our communities and match people with the right level of care when and where they need it,” said Kacie Kelly, Chief Innovation Officer at Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute in a panel on care quality. “Now we’re in a position to bring together people across the public and private sector to understand how to put those pieces together.”

Opportunities to Support Employers & Drive Public Policy

Throughout the NeuroFlow Summit, healthcare leaders also surfaced the critical challenges we still face as an industry and charted their vision for the future. In an informative client spotlight session, Jenny Merrithew VP of Marketplace Solutions and Communications at Aflac shared the physical and behavioral health impact of employees taking leave, particularly on those coworkers who take on their work.

According to Aflac’s survey of 1,000 employees, 27% of employees covering coworker leave developed new health conditions and 18% experienced worsening conditions. More than half of these employees who developed new or worsening conditions planned on taking leave as a result. This challenge is costing employers in leave, productivity, and employee attrition, and presents a significant opportunity for healthcare organizations to deliver compelling solutions.

From Left to Right: Emma Beavins, Fierce Healthcare; John Snook, Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute; Matt Miclette, NeuroFlow

During a panel on healthcare policy, moderated by Fierce Healthcare reporter Emma Beavins, leaders from Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute and NeuroFlow shared exciting policy developments that could lead to more and higher quality behavioral health care. John Snook, Chief Policy Officer at the Meadows explained that the White House is prioritizing interoperability, price transparency, and measurement in their healthcare policies. One challenge this administration sees, though, is that behavioral health is not consistently measured. Less than 20% of behavioral health providers, for example, provide measurement-based care.

“We’re at a time where there’s been significant investment in behavioral health, and they’re saying, ‘What is this for? Are you doing good things with this money?’” said Snook. “If it isn’t, [the administration] may pull back that funding. Measurement is no longer good to do, it’s a moral imperative.”

Looking Ahead: From Complexity to Clarity

As we concluded the Summit, one message resonated clearly: the behavioral health field is at an inflection point. We have the data, technology, and policy support needed to transform care delivery. The challenge now is connecting these dots – bringing together insights from different stakeholders, integrating data across systems, and scaling successful models. Health plans, health systems, employers, and technology partners must work together to create seamless experiences that put people at the center. We’re honored to be part of this transformation and look forward to continuing these important conversations.

If you’d like to stay connected with this community and learn about future Summit opportunities, follow us on LinkedIn or schedule a meeting to explore how NeuroFlow can support your organization’s behavioral health initiatives.

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