Amwell® Partners With Discovery Health to Bring First-of-its-Kind Digital Mental Health Benefit to South Africa

BOSTON & JOHANNESBURG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Discovery Health, the leading health insurance administrator providing administration and managed care services to more than 3.8 million individuals, has partnered with Amwell^® (NYSE: AMWL), a global leader in hybrid health care enablement, to introduce the first-ever digital therapeutic benefits funded by a health insurer in South Africa. As part of the organization’s robust mental healthcare program and benefits package, clinicians are now able to prescribe SilverCloud^® by Amwell, a clinically validated, evidence-based and affordable digital mental healthcare platform, to members.

As a data-driven healthcare organization that administers over 57% of the country’s market for competitive health insurance products, Discovery Health’s data from member claims reveal that the prevalence of mental health conditions has steadily increased in recent years, and this has been particularly noticeable since the COVID-19 pandemic. Aligned to global statistics, including the World Health Organization’s measure of a 25% rise in the prevalence of depression since 2018, Discovery Health demonstrates a 19% increase in the prevalence of depression since the pre-pandemic period. Adding to the strain, South Africa’s healthcare industry has also been impacted by the global workforce shortage trend. Rising prevalence with lower supply of essential service underscores Discovery Health’s need to leverage technology to broaden access to treatment via innovative, effective, and affordable digital therapies.

“The rapid digitisation of healthcare, accelerated by the global pandemic, has improved access to quality patient care across nearly every specialty worldwide. As our organisation faces demands for mental healthcare much like the concerning trends being experienced worldwide, Discovery Health sought a clinically validated, Food and Drug Administration approved and internationally proven partner to help,” says Dr. Noluthando Nematswerani, chief clinical officer at Discovery Health. “This benefit offering expands access to treatment, improves outcomes, and supports our members in changing their behaviour in a sustainable manner through leading digital cognitive behaviour therapies, so that they can better manage their condition on a regular basis. In SilverCloud by Amwell, we have found a mental health technology platform and valuable partner that will support our goal to provide increased access to care for our members.”

SilverCloud by Amwell is an award winning, on-demand digital mental health and well-being platform with proven impact among over 1 million users worldwide. Ongoing platform data shows that approximately 65% of SilverCloud users experience significant improvements and 56% of users diagnosed with symptoms of depression or anxiety were diagnosis-free within three months of using the platform. It is used by the U.K.’s National Health Service, Ireland’s Health Service Executive, and numerous provider and insurer organizations in the U.S. and worldwide.

“Global research paints a grim picture of the increased prevalence of mental health diagnoses, as one in eight people globally live with a mental health condition, and care team burnout among healthcare organizations worldwide. Discovery Health is demonstrating its global leadership and innovative approach by integrating digital therapy benefits into its mental health care offering. We are honored to enable Discovery Health’s first-of-its-kind offering in South Africa as it eases the strain on behavioral health providers while providing members easy access to affordable and effective treatment options,” said Kathy Weiler, chief commercial and growth officer, Amwell.

To learn more about SilverCloud by Amwell, click here. To learn more about Discovery Health, click here.

About Amwell
Amwell provides a leading hybrid care enablement platform in the United States and globally, connecting and enabling providers, insurers, patients, and innovators to deliver greater access to more affordable, higher quality care. Amwell believes that hybrid care delivery will transform healthcare. The company offers a single, comprehensive platform to support all digital health needs from urgent to acute and post-acute care, as well as chronic care management and healthy living. With nearly two decades of experience, Amwell powers the hybrid care of more than 55 health plans, which collectively represent more than 90 million covered lives, and many of the nation’s largest health systems, representing over 2,000 hospitals, have access to Amwell solutions. For more information, please visit https://business.amwell.com/.

©2023 American Well Corporation. All rights reserved. Amwell^®, SilverCloud^®, Converge™, Carepoint™ and the Amwell Logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of American Well Corporation.

About Discovery Group
Discovery Limited is a South African-founded financial services organisation that operates in the healthcare, life assurance, short-term insurance, banking, savings and investment and wellness markets. Since inception in 1992, Discovery has been guided by a clear core purpose – to make people healthier and to enhance and protect their lives. This has manifested in its globally recognised Vitality Shared-Value insurance model, active in over 40 markets impacting over 40 million lives. The model is exported and scaled through the Global Vitality Network, an alliance of some of the largest insurers across key markets including AIA (Asia), Ping An (China), Generali (Europe), Sumitomo (Japan), John Hancock (US), Manulife (Canada) and Vitality Life & Health (UK, wholly owned). Discovery trades on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange as DSY.

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About Discovery Health
Discovery Health is the leading medical scheme administrator in South Africa, providing administration and managed care services to over 3.7 million beneficiaries. The business has a market share of over 57% in the overall medical scheme market in South Africa and manages 18 restricted medical schemes on behalf of leading corporate clients, as well as Discovery Health Medical Scheme, South Africa's largest open medical scheme.

The success of Discovery Health is due to our ability to offer a fully integrated, value-driven healthcare operating system to our clients, centred on meeting the full spectrum of healthcare needs of client medical schemes. Discovery Health successfully operates beyond traditional administration and managed-care services and provides ongoing product innovation, best-in-class service excellence, effective claims risk and fraud management, as well as the coordination and management of the quality of clinical services accessed by our clients. We deploy world-class actuarial, analytical, clinical and research and development capabilities at every point in the medical scheme product cycle.