Pear’s shadow effect: Data from a Medicaid digital health experiment does the policy rounds

Pear Therapeutics may be gone, but one of its most important deals is still driving critical conversations about how medical apps can find a foothold in the slow-moving health care system.

In recent months, representatives of the Massachusetts state Medicaid program, MassHealth, have been presenting data suggesting reSET and reSET-O, Pear’s prescription apps that treat substance use disorder and opioid use disorder, saved the state money over a one-year period from 2021 to 2022. The data, which take into account health care utilization before and after people used the apps, have been presented to policymakers considering how to cover novel digital health products and shown to lawmakers considering federal legislation that would require Medicare coverage for prescription apps.

Pear, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year, was one of the leading companies marketing prescription digital therapeutics, or Food and Drug Administration-cleared apps designed to treat disease. Pear’s reSET was the first such app cleared by the FDA in 2017.

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