PT496 – Juan Pablo Cappello – Maintenance Doses and Recurring Revenue: The Ethics of At-Home Ketamine Therapy
Mar 19, 2024
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Juan Pablo Cappello, co-founder of Nue Life Health, talks about the ethical issues of at-home ketamine therapy, emphasizing the focus on long-term benefits over profit. He discusses industry standards, Matthew Perry's death, and the need for ethical practices in the psychedelic community.
The focus on profit-driven practices in at-home ketamine therapy may prioritize recurring revenue over long-term patient well-being and healing.
Establishing industry standards and collaborative efforts are crucial to ensure ethical practices and patient safety in the ketamine therapy space.
Deep dives
Concerns about At-Home Ketamine Therapy
At-home ketamine therapy has come under scrutiny with Juan Pablo Capello expressing concerns about its practice. He highlights the importance of proper Ketamine administration, integration, and aftercare. Capello questions the industry's focus on profit-driven practices over patient well-being. The need for a standard of care and industry collaboration to ensure ethical ketamine therapy emerges as a pivotal point in the discussion.
Challenges in Ketamine Therapy Economics
Capello emphasizes the economic challenges in ketamine therapy, urging for a shift from maintenance ketamine to addressing the root cause of depression and anxiety. He discusses the unsustainability of subscription-based models that lack integration and aftercare. The economic pressures in the market promote recurring revenue at the expense of patient well-being and long-term healing.
Critical Analysis of Industry Practices
Capello critiques the lack of consistency in ketamine therapy practices, pointing out questionable prescribing practices and inadequate patient support. He discusses the need for an industry association to establish best practices, ensure patient safety, and advocate for ethical standards. The influence of pharmaceutical companies like J&J in shaping regulatory policies is highlighted as a concern.
Advocating for Improved Ketamine Therapy
The conversation explores the importance of building an ecosystem for ethical ketamine therapy. Capello emphasizes collaborative efforts among practitioners to establish scientific consensus, standardize best practices, and elevate patient care. Discussion around creating an industry association to bridge gaps, share resources, and advocate for patient well-being in the ketamine therapy space is encouraged.
In this episode, Joe interviews Juan Pablo Cappello: co-founder and former CEO of Nue Life Health, whose assets were subsequently acquired by Beckley Waves.
Cappello digs into his recent article which has been making waves across the psychedelic community: “Profit Over Patients? A Critical Look at At-Home Ketamine Therapy.” He created Nue Life with the goal of helping a million people address the root cause of their anxiety, and while the company was successful, he began to see a problematic trend: that using ketamine while providing services of a mental health company is very expensive and resource-consuming, and as companies saw a large percentage of clients requiring maintenance doses, the most profitable business model became essentially slinging ketamine to patients without providing any real integration or aftercare. Are these companies promising healing but really only guaranteeing recurring revenue?
He talks about:
How this emerging model makes it harder for ethical practitioners to be able to provide their services
The tools they built at Nue Life for long-term benefit, and why these should be the main focus – not repeated ketamine
Matthew Perry’s death and how the media was quick to place the blame on ketamine
The need for companies and communities to come to gather and create ethical industry standards for the at-home ketamine model
How cannabis was almost decriminalized under the Carter administration