Minnesota is already recovering with Sober Sidekick.
Nobody paid us to be here. Nearly seven thousand Minnesotans found the platform on their own, without a marketing dollar spent in the state, because they needed something at a moment when nothing else was open. The need is real and the trust is already built. What is missing is the clinical layer on top of it.
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Active Minnesota members
530% growth over the last twelve months, acquired entirely organically. No marketing spend in the state and no referral contracts.
Peer support engagements
Between Minnesota members, in the hours when nothing else is open. Every post gets a reply.
Virtual meetings attended
AA and NA meetings joined from a phone, from every county in the state, without driving anywhere.
What is already happening in Minnesota
Treatment is episodic. Relapse is continuous.
A member leaves a residential program, an emergency department, or a counseling session and returns to the same environment that made them unwell. The system loses sight of them until the next crisis generates the next claim. In Minnesota, that space in between is already full of our members.
Prevention, already earned
Every active member is scored continuously against behavioral and social signals, which means we can reach someone before a crisis rather than after a claim.
estimated relapse episodes avoided among engaged Minnesota members over the last twelve months
in avoided relapse cost across those same members
Members reported a relapse
Self-reported in the app over the last twelve months.
Came back anyway
Returned to the community and kept engaging with peers after the setback.
Members nationally
The largest peer recovery community in the country, free and anonymous.
Minnesota platform data, trailing twelve months. Avoided cost applies the CHARM Economics prevention-to-ROI model, certified by the Validation Institute, to the engaged Minnesota cohort.
Sober Sidekick and Wakely Consulting Group, an HMA Company
Health plans spend $3.64 on crisis for every $1 on recovery.
We asked Wakely, an HMA company, to classify every SUD dollar across a recovery-value spectrum. They analyzed $569 million in allowed cost across roughly 150,000 lives with a primary substance use diagnosis. The finding is the single most useful number we have for a conversation with a health plan. The book is ACA marketplace rather than Medicaid, so read the ratio as the transferable finding and the dollars as directional.
Every dollar of sustained-recovery spend, against what crisis takes
For every $1 of SUD-primary spend on services that sustain recovery, $3.64 goes to acute stabilization and short-cycle services. Across roughly 150,000 ACA marketplace lives and $569 million in allowed cost, that is not an allocation anyone chose. It is what fragmented continuity of care produces on its own.
Where the dollars actually land
ED, ambulance, detox, short-term residential, partial hospitalization
MAT, case management, psychotherapy, preventive primary care
Source: Wakely ACA Database, 2023 benefit year, primary SUD diagnosis ICD-10-CM F10 to F19. Recovery-value classification developed jointly by Wakely actuaries and HMA substance use subject-matter experts. Mid-value services are excluded from the two percentages shown, so they do not sum to 100.
The glide path
Two rungs, and they compound.
The 3.64 to 1 ratio tells you the money is in the wrong place. The Validation Institute certified outcome tells you what happens when it moves. Those are two different savings arguments, and a plan does not have to accept the second one to act on the first.
per engaged member, per year
The opportunity the joint brief quantifies if a portion of acute-stabilization spend shifts toward services that sustain recovery. This is the rebalancing case, and it does not require a single new clinical outcome to be true.
Wakely Consulting Group, an HMA Company
per engaged member, per year
What the same member is worth once Recovery Care is actually delivering the 48.2% reduction in reported relapse. Rebalancing the spend gets you to rung one. Preventing the relapse gets you to rung two.
CHARM Economics, on the Validation Institute certified outcome
Fewer reported relapses
Certified by the Validation Institute
Among engaged members, independently reviewed rather than self-reported. CHARM Economics applied that certified reduction to a Medicaid population and modeled roughly $4,400 in avoided cost per member per year. A relapse episode is expensive in a very specific and well-documented way, and preventing half of them is where the second rung comes from.
Modeled savings. Validation Institute, 2023 Validation Report, Sober Sidekick App, Validated for Outcomes. CHARM Economics, LLC prevention-to-ROI model. Results vary by population, engagement, and local cost structure.
Our three success drivers
What it actually takes to recover.
Three things a person with a substance use disorder needs. Today they live in three different places, and we ask the person in crisis to go find each one. We built all three into a single platform.
Someone to turn to
The moments that matter are at 10:30 at night, not 10:30 in the morning.
- A 24/7 peer community, no appointment
- Every post gets a reply
- No member has ever gone without support
An expert care team
Activation does not wait for a waitlist to clear.
- Licensed clinicians, in the app they already have
- Relapse-prevention counseling and a real plan
- Head-to-toe medical review, with follow-up
Ongoing support
Recovery is longitudinal. The system treats it as an episode.
- Pulse self-checks between visits
- Give support to get support
- 90% come back after a setback
Recovery Care · Empathy Health clinical arm
One Recovery Care program, three entry paths.
Every entry path lands in the same clinician-led, peer-supported virtual recovery care model, billed to Medicaid codes that already exist.
Gap closure and event follow-up
Annual wellness, prenatal and postpartum care, emergency department follow-up, hospital discharge follow-up. The visit closes the gap and starts treatment.
E/M (9920x) + G2086 in month oneSober Sidekick app members
Members already active in the recovery community convert into clinical care, surfaced by rising-risk predictive indicators.
G2086 only, no E/MResidential rehab discharge
Step-down follow-up in the first thirty days after a residential stay, when the risk of return is highest.
G2086 only, no E/MMonth 1 · Initiation
G2086
- Individualized treatment plan
- Relapse-prevention counseling
- Recovery care planning
- Care coordination and social needs
- At least 70 minutes in the month
Months 2–6 · Ongoing engagement
G2087
Monthly relapse-prevention counseling, recovery care planning and coordination, at least 60 minutes a month. Typical engagement runs three to four months, and the benefit is available through month six.
Virtual (POS 02) · F10–F19 primary diagnosis · E/M billed on the date of service · G2086 and G2087 billed the last day of the month · one G2086 and up to five G2087 per member, per plan year.
The model
Predict. Prevent. Recover.
Reduce substance use disorder spend and build recovery resiliency, on a platform of 1.5 million app users and the largest relapse data set in recovery.
Predictive intelligence
In-app behavioral signals that let us act before a member falls, built on the largest relapse data set in recovery.
Smart alerts
Data-driven engagement turned into action. Every signal routes into a clinical next step rather than a dashboard.
Recovery Care
Immediate access to licensed clinicians, relapse reduction counseling, a personalised recovery plan and follow-up.
Three member moments
A recovery system that meets people wherever they are.
Three people, three moments, one platform that treats recovery as continuous rather than as an episode that ends.
Needs help right now
It is 10:30 at night. John is eleven months sober and tonight is hard. Every clinic in the state is closed.
How we designed for it
Peers answer within minutes. Every post gets a reply, around the clock.
Sober Sidekick · Peer supportReady for treatment
Sarah has been struggling for months. Today is the day she decides she wants real help.
How we designed for it
We route her to licensed clinicians now, not onto a waitlist.
Recovery Care · Empathy HealthTreated, then drifting
Mike finished his program. Six weeks later his engagement quietly drops off.
How we designed for it
Our signals flag the risk and our team reaches out first.
Smart Alerts · Proactive outreachMember testimonials
Positive impact, heard from thousands.
“My recovery has been an amazing journey. Sober Sidekick has helped me manage through my sobriety and find other people just like me, especially during my hard times. My dark days are nowhere compared to my bright sober days.”
App Store rating
Member reviews
How we partner in Minnesota
We are ready to scale the impact we have already started.
Together we can expand recovery access statewide, connect more Minnesotans to timely care, and build a more coordinated support system for long-term success.
Scale membership
Leverage 1.5 million global downloads and the members Minnesota already has to grow the state’s recovery community by several thousand more over the next twelve months.
Launch Recovery Care
Give every Minnesotan already on the platform immediate access to our licensed clinician team for counseling, education, recovery planning and follow-up.
Keep support continuous
Pair always-on peer support with strong coordination across Minnesota’s existing care ecosystem, so the member experience is one relationship rather than a referral and a hope.