Birches Health Adds Former Cigna-Evernorth Behavioral Chief as Senior Advisor to Advance Payor-Integrated Gambling Care Model

New updates have been reported about Birches Health.

Birches Health has appointed Dr. Doug Nemecek, former Chief Medical Officer of Behavioral Health at Cigna-Evernorth, to its advisory board as a senior advisor, strengthening its push to scale insurance-covered treatment for gambling disorder nationwide. In this role, he will advise Birches leadership on clinical strategy and payor engagement, bringing a health-plan-centric view on how specialty behavioral solutions are evaluated, reimbursed, and integrated into mainstream care.

For over two decades, Dr. Nemecek led clinical strategy, quality, and operations for a multi-billion-dollar behavioral health business serving more than 16 million members, experience Birches aims to leverage as payors increasingly recognize gambling disorder as a material clinical and cost concern. His background in utilization management, provider network design, and large-scale clinical programs is expected to help Birches align its outcomes data, network strategy, and cost-impact story with payor requirements.

Birches is building a national, payor-integrated model for gambling and digital addiction treatment, positioning itself as a specialist provider at a time when online and mobile betting are driving record levels of gambling-related harm and outpacing traditional care capacity. The company reports it now operates the largest U.S. network of clinicians trained specifically in gambling disorder and behavioral addictions, delivering evidence-based, measurement-informed care covered by major insurers in all 50 states.

According to Birches, 85% of its patients show clinically significant symptom improvement, a metric that underpins its value proposition to health plans seeking demonstrable outcomes and total-cost-of-care impact. The addition of Dr. Nemecek is intended to accelerate the integration of gambling treatment into benefit designs and care pathways, moving the category from fragmented, mostly out-of-pocket support toward structured, reimbursed clinical programs.

Birches’ leadership views his experience with integrating behavioral health into broader medical management and addressing system-wide issues such as the opioid crisis and access gaps as directly relevant to scaling gambling care in a similar fashion. As health plans increase focus on specialty behavioral solutions that can prove efficacy and scalability, Birches aims to use this advisory appointment to deepen payer partnerships, refine its clinical model, and solidify its position as the leading national platform for insurance-covered treatment of gambling and related digital addictions.