Clarity Pediatrics Partners with Catalight to Holistically Expand Its Services with RUBI

Overview

Clarity Pediatrics is a telehealth clinic founded in late 2021 with the goal of enhancing access to care for children with chronic conditions, starting with ADHD. Today, Clarity Pediatrics employs about 30 staff and receives roughly 1,000 referrals monthly. After realizing early on that many of the children referred to Clarity Pediatrics had co-occurring autism and ADHD, they sought to expand their services to create a more holistic program. Their partnership with Catalight has played a key role in developing and implementing a specialized, evidence-based program to meet the unique needs of children with both ADHD and autism. 

The Need for a New Approach

Clarity Pediatrics Co-founder and Chief Medical Officer Alesandro Larrazabal, M.D., noted a significant overlap between ADHD and autism: many children face delays in diagnosis, long waitlists and incomplete care. The lack of comprehensive treatment, particularly when it comes to behavioral interventions, exacerbates challenges for families. 

When they started receiving low support need autistic children who wouldn’t benefit from high-intensity ABA, Dr. Larrazabal asked, “What about these kids? We have a lot of these kids and we don’t have anywhere to send them.” 

Knowing that such programs were hard to come by for families, Clarity Pediatrics determined there was a big need for clinical services and specialized care but realized any expansion they built had to be holistic, targeted and evidence-based. 

The Solution: Catalight’s RUBI

In spending significant time researching, talking to experts and reading published literature, Dr. Larrazabal found a promising solution in RUBI, a caregiver-mediated intervention for autistic youth in which trained practitioners teach parents how to implement a range of effective behavioral strategies. At the time, Karen Bearss, Ph.D., an internationally recognized expert in behavioral interventions for autism and co-developer of the RUBI program, had recently joined Catalight to lead the build out of the RUBI practitioner learning platform in Catalight Classroom. 

“We realized that the best and most evidence-based behavioral intervention for our subset of kids with autism was RUBI,” said Dr. Larrazabal.  

Dr. Bearss and the Catalight Classroom team worked with Clarity Pediatrics to train their practitioners on how to deliver RUBI with families in a group format as well as how to integrate the program into their practice. 

“The kids we see, they may have some social or emotional challenges, but they’re high-functioning ADHD and autism where high-hour ABA isn’t the best fit,” Dr. Larrazabal said. “They benefit greatly from this type of parent training. Their parents benefit because they can modify their parenting techniques and strategies in benefit of the child. They end up having more cordial, congenial and positive interactions with their kids.” 

Success and Impact

Currently, there are dozens of families going through Clarity Pediatrics’ RUBI program. Since the start of their collaboration with Catalight, they have seen positive results both in terms of patient engagement and overall clinical satisfaction. The program’s success is reflected in: 

• High attendance and completion rates comparable to other behavioral parent training programs

• Overwhelmingly positive feedback from both parents and referring pediatricians 

• Greater access and telehealth flexibility that’s covered by commercial insurance, Medicaid and TRICARE  

• Professional satisfaction from clinicians who are gaining training and development in RUBI – a sophisticated, specialized skill set for practitioners    

• The ability to effectively serve a growing number of children internally who might not have otherwise received the help they need  

• A more cost-effective solution for payers by sidestepping unnecessary interventions that aren’t the right fit for families  

Dr. Larrazabal said: “Unfortunately, most clinical organizations struggle to scale these types of programs. That’s why I think the partnership between us and Catalight is really special, because we have a lot of patients that have this need. We have the numbers, so we can deliver RUBI at scale, basically. I think all organizations could do it if they had the willingness.” 

Looking Ahead: The Future of the Partnership

As the prevalence of autism and ADHD continue to rise, the need for specialized care for children with both ADHD and autism will only increase. Clarity Pediatrics plans to expand the RUBI program, soon offering it in Spanish, and continuing to increase the number of patients served. 

By integrating the RUBI program into their practice, Clarity Pediatrics has been able to provide a much-needed service to families of children with ADHD and autism that they wouldn’t have otherwise received.  

“I see more and more opportunities from working together with Catalight and payers to pitch that this is the right thing to do for families,” said Dr. Larrazabal.