Even when employers offer ample services and health plan benefits for substance use disorder and mental illness, most employees do not access these resources until they are in crisis. Multiple barriers exist that prevent employees from reaching out sooner, such as privacy concerns, stigma around brain illness, difficulty navigating provider networks, and financial limitations. For these reasons, the vast majority of struggling employees go undetected, undiagnosed, and untreated, and employers face substantial excess spend and liability.
Truusight does not replace any services provided by an employer’s current wellness and health benefits programs. Rather, we eliminate the barriers that keep employees from taking advantage of those resources. We help employers optimize their existing programs and maximize their return on investment.
Truusight was created by data-driven, results-focused industry experts with an abundance of practical experience and a commitment to whole-person health. Our continuum of solutions achieves significant cost savings (4-to-1 return on cost of program after year 1 alone), in addition to reduced losses from employee absenteeism, presenteeism, and turnover. By combining known best practices with innovative technology, Truusight helps employers overcome the challenges related to substance use disorder and co-occurring mental illness in their employees.
Truusight was born at the crossroads of a dynamic executive team — each steeped in experience in their respective area of expertise, and each driven by their own passion around helping those suffering from substance use disorders and mental health conditions. The executive team brings together a medical doctor from the frontier of substance use disorder and mental health conditions, a supplemental insurance guru with 35 years experience in providing targeted solutions to large employers, an implementer of enterprise-level programs in mental healthcare that have affected thousands of people, and a builder of effective business solutions for the employer healthcare marketplace.
Dr. Spessot is passionate about destigmatizing brain disorders and making quality care accessible to all who struggle with substance use and/or mental illness.
Dr. Spessot received her undergraduate education at Johns Hopkins University, after which she obtained a medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She then completed residency training in general psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine.
Dr. Spessot is strongly committed to bringing physician leadership to health care. She has held positions of medical leadership for the entirety of her career, with expertise spanning from outpatient to acute care settings, and from federal to state and private health systems. More recently she served as Chief Medical Officer for a large community mental health provider organization, overseeing a continuum of care that served over 30,000 lives.
Dr. Spessot is an equally dedicated clinician, providing direct patient care alongside her other professional pursuits. As a medical doctor specializing in psychiatry, Dr. Spessot focuses on treating brain illnesses that affect how individuals think, feel, and behave.
Dr. Spessot’s vast array of experience has led her to Truusight, through which seeks to change how care for brain illness is perceived, accessed, and delivered.
When she isn’t working, Dr. Spessot enjoys cooking, making music, and spending time with her family.
Audrey Whetsell (MA, CPHIT, NCQA CCE) currently serves as Chief Operating Officer at Truusight. Audrey joined Truusight in April of 2019 where she works on designing patient-centered programs focused on substance abuse treatment and recovery as well as mental health promotion. In this role, she functions as a key participant with the executive team in the design, implementation and coordination of company-wide operations.
In 2017 as a response to the National Opioid Crisis Audrey designed and implemented a multi-agency Strategic Targeted Response in the District of Columbia funded by SAMHSA. During the grant period Audrey worked with the SAMHSA Single State Agency to collect information in order to evaluate and disseminate information on evidence-based practices, including culturally and linguistically appropriate services, as appropriate, and service delivery models necessary to continue to encourage innovation and disseminate evidence-based programs and practices.
As a Certified NCQA Content Expert, Audrey has provided NCQA consulting and support services to Primary and Specialty health systems providers and health technology vendors. Audrey continues to work with several state Health Information Exchange Projects as a consultant for ACOs, MCOs and MSOs.
She spends her free time advocating for all consumers of healthcare as Founder and CEO of The Medi Inc., a 501(c3) nonprofit. The Medi’s Community Resource Center is a robust virtual technology database solution that provide increasing partnerships through strong referral networks using collaborations that strengthen social capital, improve existing resources in communities that begin tackling real issues in people lives that lead to better health, education, transportation, housing, jobs, and less crime.
Audrey holds a Masters and a Bachelor of Science Degree from the University of South Carolina. She has two adult children and enjoys spending her free time traveling with family and friends.
Jeff Sepesi is a founding member of Truusight and currently serves as Chief Sales Officer focused on sales strategies and implementation at both a national level as well as focused distribution channels to include labor unions, large self-funded employers, TPAs, benefit consultants, brokers and insurance carriers.
Jeff started his career in voluntary, worksite benefits in 1986 while in college at the University of Michigan. Over the last 35 years, he has built top-performing organizations with a focus in large, metro markets successfully integrating supplemental benefits into Consumer Driven Health Care strategies to more than 15,000 employer groups producing more than $300 million in premium. Working with many of the nation’s largest companies and labor unions in both the private and public sector, Jeff has been a respected advisor with expertise in:
His diverse industry expertise and ability to deliver successful outcomes that enhance employee satisfaction and financial security while driving further savings to the company’s bottom line has helped decision-makers navigate the myriad of voluntary benefit options & strategies.
Jeff’s passion for Truusight’s mission is a result of both, interactions with many of his employer clients who like so many have been experiencing accelerated occurrence of SUD/MH within their workforce and his personal lived experience following back surgery in 2016. After identifying significant gaps and inefficiencies within employer resources available with no viable solution that focused on the payor side of this complex challenge, the decision was made to build an ecosystem which focused on lowering spend by effectively managing the care journey for employees and their families.
Jonathan Ferguson is the founder and CEO of Truusight and is responsible for overseeing all facets of the business while leading the development and execution of the long-term strategic vision of the company. Jonathan helps guide the Truusight leadership team to achieve its growth targets and leverages significant relationships and opportunities that exist throughout their network of strategic investors and partners. Jonathan has a proven executive management track record and over 20 years of experience leading high-performance organizations while driving growth in the insurance, technology, and healthcare industries.
Prior to his role with Truusight, Jonathan was the President and Chief Operating Officer with an HR compliance and technology startup. Under Jonathan’s leadership, the company experienced triple digit growth in both revenue and headcount and partnered with many of the largest national and regional insurance brokerage firms and technology integrators. By the end of the first year alone, the company had over 1,100 employer clients including several high-profile large enterprise companies representing nearly one million employees.
He has been a guest speaker and expert panelist for a number of groups across various industries including restaurant, retail, staffing, insurance and healthcare.
Outside of work, Jonathan enjoys spending time with his wife and two boys, playing golf, and traveling.
Jonathan has a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business.
