CVS Health's Theresa Juday on Payer Investment in CBT for Insomnia

With cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) emerging as a first-line treatment option for insomnia, payer investment has begun to gain traction in recent years, although some challenges remain, said Theresa Juday, RPh, director, Specialty Product Development, CVS Health.

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How have availability and payer investment in CBT evolved in recent years amid growing signs of effectiveness?

From my perspective with payers, it's starting to gain more interest. I think it helps that the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine both now recognize CBT as really the first-line treatment when it comes to chronic insomnia issues.

There have been concerns by patients, providers, and payers around some of the potential side effects and potential addiction issues that can occur with traditional sleep aids. And so CBT has really started to begin to get more ingrained for payers. There are challenges to that, however, that I think is why you're not seeing broad adoption of CBT as the first-line treatment option for payers at this time.