A one-on-one conversation with a CMR Board Member on the keys to being a strategic partner.
Throughout his career, Jason Gaines has learned what it takes to build effective healthcare partnerships. Mr. Gaines, a CMR Board Member, has held numerous leadership roles with organizations like Sol Mental Health, Pearl Health, Intermountain Health, Allina Health, and Sanofi. His work in strategy, business development, and innovation has helped healthcare organizations improve patient access and prepare for value-based care.
In this Q&A, Mr. Gaines discusses the current mental health crisis and how life science industry leaders can help providers meet the behavioral health needs of patients.
How would you characterize the state of mental healthcare in the U.S. in 2025?
Mr. Gaines: Mental and behavioral health is under-resourced in health systems, primarily because these services compete for capital against other services with higher operating margins. And that’s not the fault of a health system that’s operating on a 3% or 4% margin. That’s the reality of keeping the doors open.
With that, we’ve seen a proliferation of startups that are trying to figure out a sustainable business model for mental health. Typically, these are online or virtual platforms, but there are also companies with both an online and brick-and-mortar presence. Yet they are also challenged by the lack of margin. Increasingly, patients prefer in-person visits, adding operational costs to the mental health service delivery model.
That is the crossroads we’re at in mental healthcare delivery in the United States. Commercial payers, state Medicaid programs, and Medicare all need to increase rates so outpatient behavioral health services can be sustainable and allow both health systems and private entities to bring more providers to market.
What can life science companies do to help support efforts to improve access to mental healthcare in 2025?
Mr. Gaines: It’s important for life sciences companies to understand each customer’s prioritization of mental health by asking questions such as:
- Does the customer have memorialized goals for mental health that live in a dashboard or board report?
- What are the customer’s dedicated roles, departments, and initiatives related to mental health?
- Are there existing mental health partnerships to improve outpatient access or reduce ER visits?
Then, you can determine if you have a product or service to link to those efforts. So, for example, if you have a product that improves weight loss or A1C scores and as a result, Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) scores, you can have a more holistic conversation around population health improvement and the total cost of care.
Throughout your career, you’ve done a lot of work on strategy. What lessons do you have for life science leaders on how they can be strategic partners?
Mr. Gaines: First, if you aspire to become a strategic partner or consultant that your customers can lean on, you must be a knowledge resource. You’re the subject matter expert on your company’s portfolio as well as your customers’ source for market intelligence. Your company is tracking advancements across therapeutic areas, while you understand provider happenings, such as mergers and acquisitions in your market.
Second, you must speak each customer’s “love language.” For example:
- Is their language focused on the patient experience, meaning they aim to increase customer satisfaction to improve their competitiveness in the market?
- Or is it outcomes because they have a board objective to improve certain measures, such as the percentage of patients with a controlled A1C score?
- Or is it convenience because they want care to be easier to access in their market?
- Or is it practice management because they want to improve physician productivity or outpatient operating margins?
- Or is it operating income because they want to drive more margin out of the medical practice or health system?
All five of these performance areas could be considered love languages. To become a preferred partner, you need to speak the same love language as your customer, which you can do by understanding their priorities. Then you can position your product or service in the context of what’s important to the health system.
What is your best advice on creating meaningful provider partnerships?
Mr. Gaines: The partnerships that are of the greatest value are those that help customers achieve outcomes and address the key performance indicators, or KPIs, on their performance map. So, you must understand what those KPIs are and use them as the basis for all your engagements with the customer.
Also, share what you are learning and hearing with different departments or facilities within the same health system. When I think about the most valuable life science partnerships I’ve had as a provider group leader, they tend to be with people who have helped me navigate and understand my own organization, in addition to the external market.
