Lucid Lane, the telehealth solution that empowers people with medication dependence and substance-use disorders to live better, healthier lives, today announced $4 million in seed funding from global investment firm Battery Ventures. Funding comes as Lucid Lane now accepts Medicare patients for its telehealth services. Lucid Lane can now aggressively scale virtual delivery of data-driven intervention and personalized behavioral health support at a time when Americans need it most.
Each year 50 million people are prescribed opioids and 13 million are prescribed benzodiazepines–often after surgery or in conjunction with cancer treatment–without a comprehensive management or tapering plan for the highly addictive medications. As a result, more than 20 million patients will develop long-term medication dependence or substance use after surgery or chemotherapy. In these cases, patients often rely on medications over extended periods, triggering powerful addictions that can take months or years to treat.
“Medication dependence and addiction does not discriminate. It is a life-altering problem that can overtake literally anyone, and overcoming it is an incredibly complex, resource-intensive process,” said Adnan Asar, co-founder and CEO of Lucid Lane. “Most people do not have the time, money, or access to the level of continuous treatment required to beat dependence and prevent addiction. Lucid Lane aims to be that equalizer.”
Lucid Lane delivers a closed loop, multi-disciplinary tele-health solution. The company actively partners with surgeons and other doctors at many hospitals, such as University of Texas McGovern Medical School in Houston, for outcome-based clinical studies, as well as surgeons and doctors at hospitals and healthcare practices that refer patients to Lucid Lane. Once the patient onboards to the Lucid Lane platform, licensed therapists provide medication tapering; behavioral health coaching and therapy; physician collaboration; and mentoring. Care is completely virtual, leveraging video, voice, and chat over mobile and web interfaces for convenience, scale, and affordability.
Through multiple live sessions with therapists each week as well as ongoing communications with care-team members in a HIPAA-compliant chat, patients’ health signals are constantly measured, and treatment plans adjusted in order to lead them towards a healthier and more productive life. Lucid Lane solution prevents the risk of prolonged dependence of medications and substances while also ensuring effective mental health and pain control with a resulting improvement in quality of life and functioning. Unlike other telehealth solutions, Lucid Lane accepts health plans that cover telehealth. For those who do not have health coverage, a self-pay option is available. Lucid Lane also accepts Medicare patients to ensure that members and their doctors have access to effective treatment plans customized for their needs.
“Lucid Lane provides a patient-centered solution that allows for the best clinical outcomes for patients after surgery and those bravely finishing chemotherapy,” said Dr. Vanila Singh, former chief medical officer for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and clinical associate professor of anesthesiology, pain and peri-operative medicine at Stanford and a teaching mentor at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. “For the many patients who require short-term opioids and benzodiazepine medications, Lucid Lane’s treatment can limit the risk of prolonged dependence of these medications while also ensuring effective pain control with a resulting improved quality of life and functioning.”
While Lucid Lane was designed for medication dependence and substance use treatment of patients, it also solves an essential, immediate need. In the midst of the COVID-19 epidemic, people nationwide are under incredible amounts of stress as they endure social isolation, potential job loss, and fear for their own health as well as their families and friends. Many have also had to postpone cancer treatments and other surgeries considered elective, according to CEO Asar. These conditions are ripe for people to begin abusing medications or relapsing into old dependencies. Lucid Lane offers powerful preventative assistance and free counseling through on-going and daily availability of care team members.
World-Class Leadership
To address the gaping hole in pain management, Lucid Lane was founded by Adnan Asar, former CTO of Livongo Health and global head of technology at Shutterfly; Dr. Ahmed Zaafran, M.D, a board certified anesthesiologist at Santa Clara Valley Medical Center and assistant professor of anesthesiology (affiliated) at Stanford University School of Medicine. Asar and Zaafran have assembled a world-class team of other technologists, clinicians, and health-tech pioneers to make Lucid Lane’s novel approach a reality.
The company is advised by a group of renowned tech and clinical experts, including Dr. Vanila Singh, who was also previously chairperson of the HHS Task Force in conjunction with the DOD and the VA to address the opioid drug crisis; Dr. Carin Hagberg, MD, chair of anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine of MD Anderson Cancer Center; and Sherif Zaafran, M.D., president of the Texas Medical Board and chair of multiple national committees on pain management, including the subcommittee Taskforce on Pain Management Services for HHS, as well as the department’s Pain Clinical Pathways Committee.
“We see great potential for Lucid Lane, as it has developed a scalable solution to one of the biggest problems facing society today,” said Battery General Partner Dharmesh Thakker. “Telehealth solutions have emerged as highly capable of addressing complex problems, and Lucid Lane has embraced remote care from its beginning. Its design enables care anytime, anywhere for patients in their moment of need. This can make a tremendous difference in the battle between recovery and relapse. We believe that it will help millions of people lead better lives.”
To learn more about Lucid Lane, please visit www.lucidlane.com.
About Lucid Lane
Lucid Lane uses data driven personalized health planning, real-time interventions, daily coach-based support and daily on-going access to therapist support to make it easier for people with medication dependence and substance use to successfully taper and live a healthier life. The Lucid Lane solution is a core set of technologies and services that provide ongoing measurement and monitoring, personalized treatment planning and timely interventions to provide a comprehensive solution for medication dependence and substance-use disorder. The company, led by veteran technologists and clinicians, is based in Los Altos, California. It is backed by Battery Ventures.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200511005120/en/