ORCHID

Phase One · Demonstration Pilot

The nine-month pilot that makes the full study fundable.

Pilot Proposal · $458K · Raising now

Sheri Eckert FoundationIncubator and founding partner

UC BerkeleyCollaborative for the Economics of Psychedelics

UCSFCarhart-Harris Lab

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02 What Phase 1 buys

What the pilot credibly delivers

The most consequential thing Phase 1 buys

A matched comparison group, built and tested inside the pilot

Participants live through the same year as everyone else, so a before-and-after picture alone cannot separate the service from the year. Comparing each participant’s change against matched non-participants over the same window removes what happened to everyone. It also confirms that adequate matches exist for this population, and that the two groups were tracking together before the session, the assumption the full study’s headline estimate rests on. Deferring controls leaves all of that open going into the Phase 2 decision.

A working claims-linkage pipeline

Demonstrates the ability to connect an individual’s service date to medical claims data.

The first variance and effect-size estimates for this population

Our power calculation currently borrows its assumptions from other behavioral health interventions. The pilot replaces them with values measured from real linked claims, and measures the variance of the treated-versus-control difference, the parameter the full study is sized on.

A directional signal on the care shift

Utilization counts (ER visits, hospitalizations, outpatient and behavioral health visits) as the primary outcome, dollars secondary. Counts are less noisy than spending, the most likely place to see the acute to preventive shift.

A population of prospective participants (ORCHID II)

By piggybacking on the Carhart-Harris / CANOPY survey at near-zero marginal cost, we enroll early participants and prove out the recruitment channel.

03 The honest boundary

What Phase 1 will not claim

It is an estimate of the magnitude of change we expect to see in the full study, not confirmatory proof of savings.

What nine months cannot settle

A specific dollar figure

A nine-month pilot is not powered to settle whether spending falls by a specific amount. Treat the directional estimate as suggestive.

What the go / no-go gate leans on

Feasibility and variance

Both are questions the pilot answers cleanly. They are what turn the Phase 2 commitment into an informed one rather than a hopeful one.

Its job is to show feasibility, fix the variance, and indicate direction, which is enough to make the Phase 2 commitment an informed one.

04 Scope of the pilot

Nine months, three moves

01

Recruit and consent

SEF provider network · Oregon

Roughly 300 to 400 retrospective Oregon participants. An estimated 270 to 360 link successfully to claims. The match rate is itself a feasibility finding.

02

Purchase one retrospective data pull

Komodo or IQVIA

A single pull covering both the pilot participants and their matched controls. ORCHID II’s separate claims pull is deferred to Phase 2, where we would negotiate from a stronger position once funding is committed.

03

Compare treated versus control

Utilization counts and spending

Each participant’s change from their own baseline, net of the contemporaneous change among matched controls. Up to 24 months of pre-session baseline separates genuine change from regression to the mean, reinforced by event-study trends and negative-control outcomes.

The pilot is designed so that every dollar also buys infrastructure the full study reuses.

05 Investment

Fund the pilot

$458KPhase 1 · Raising now

The pilot, including the matched comparison group. Phase 2 follows only after the go / no-go decision.

Phase 1Raising now

Pilot, including the matched comparison group.

$458K

Phase 2

Balance to complete the full study, after the go / no-go decision.

$1.4M

Total program

$1.79M

Over 3.5 years. Reconciles to the current budget with 7.5% UC Berkeley indirect.

Phase One is the gate. The full overview is the whole picture.

Keep reading.

13 slides · Phase 1 and Phase 2

Full ORCHID overview →

The problem, the study design, the focal population, the three pathways to access, the team, and the full $1.79M program.

Three pages · Print and share

Phase One as a PDF

The same proposal as a printable sheet, built to forward to a colleague or drop into a board packet.

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