A step by step plan to take reMYnd and AiCarer to Bupa, the Medibank Group, Queensland Health and the Commonwealth. Built to be provocative enough to open the door, and defensible enough to survive a health economist on the other side of the table.
Every other prevention program sells one side of the ledger. We sell both: the carer who costs money today, and the at risk adult who will cost a fortune tomorrow. The carer gets an insurer to yes this year. Prevention gets government to fund the scale.
Four numbers that make the problem impossible to ignore, and impossible to solve by paying for more of the same.
You are already paying for carer breakdown. It just does not show up on the ledger as "carer". It shows up as a cardiac admission, a depression episode, a fall, a new chronic disease in a 55 year old who was healthy two years ago. The cost is real. It is simply invisible. We make it visible, then we move it.
The carer is present tense. Prevention is future tense. We need both, and we have both.
Pure prevention programs ask a buyer to bet on a payoff fifteen to twenty years away. That is a hard sell to an insurer whose members churn every few years, and a slow sell to a government on a three year cycle. So prevention programs stall.
The carer changes the maths. A dementia carer is an identifiable, high risk, under served member who generates claims this year. Improve their sleep, their cardiorespiratory fitness, their HRV, their mood, and you reduce a cost the buyer can see inside twelve months. That is the wedge that gets the first cheque written. Prevention then rides in as the upside, not the whole bet.
The closest Australian analogue to reMYnd told the market it could not commercialise itself.
Maintain Your Brain (MYB) is the world's largest online dementia prevention trial, more than 6,000 Australians, run out of UNSW. Its 2025 cost effectiveness analysis found the program was effectively cost neutral while significantly improving cognition and lowering dementia risk. Costs over three years were almost identical between groups (about $16,473 versus $16,521 per person), with better outcomes in the intervention arm. ESTABLISHED AUSTRALIAN
The researchers then said, in print, that despite being effective, scalable and cost effective, attracting government or commercial interest to deliver it at population scale had "proved challenging." That is the gap we walk through. We are not trying to invent the science. We are the commercial vehicle MYB never built, with two things it did not have: a wearable data stream and a carer.
Every pitch has to answer one question before any other: how does the person across the table make or save money. Here it is on one page.
| Time horizon | What changes | Who pays now | Who benefits | The lever reMYnd + AiCarer pulls |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Near term 0 to 24 months |
Carer health improves: sleep, HRV, fitness, mood, distress | Insurers, via avoidable carer admissions and chronic disease onset | Insurers and employers first | A measurable twelve month carer intervention with a claims signal |
| Medium term 2 to 10 years |
Slower progression, fewer crisis admissions, later institutionalisation | State health and aged care systems | Queensland Health, Commonwealth | Earlier risk reduction in the at risk midlife cohort |
| Long term 10 years plus |
Dementia onset delayed across a population | The whole system, $26b plus by 2041 | Commonwealth, society | A delay of even one to two years moves billions per year |
The National Dementia Action Plan 2024 to 2034 is the Commonwealth's ten year roadmap, endorsed by every Health Minister. It is not a funding program, it is legitimacy and direction. And it puts our headline number in the government's own mouth.
The Action Plan states, in its own words, that if it can drive as little as a 5 per cent annual reduction in new dementia cases in people aged 65 and over, it could result in up to $120.4 billion in savings by 2056. We are not a vendor asserting a saving. We are a delivery mechanism for a figure the Commonwealth has already committed to in writing. ESTABLISHED AUSTRALIAN
The Plan has eight actions. We sit squarely inside three, and support two more.
| Action Plan action | What the Plan says it wants | What we deliver |
|---|---|---|
| Action 3 Delay onset and progression | "People at risk of developing dementia often aren't supported to take preventive action." Midlife (45 to 65) named as the key risk window. | reMYnd core. A structured, measured, twelve month multidomain program for exactly that midlife window. |
| Action 6 Support carers | "Carer burnout can lead to people living with dementia entering permanent residential care earlier than needed." Carers "could also benefit from physical activity to improve their physical and mental health." | AiCarer core. Proactive, continuous carer support and measurement, not respite as a last resort. |
| Action 8 Data, research, innovation | "No single dataset", "Australian data is limited", "innovative practices and models often aren't translated into practice." AI named as an opportunity, with ethical safeguards. | A consented, wearable linked longitudinal dataset, and a translation engine. Directly answers a stated national data gap. |
| Action 2 Awareness (supporting) | Educate people on risk factors and ways to reduce risk. | The Healthy Ageing Project, a trusted community channel already doing this at scale. |
| Action 4 Post diagnosis (supporting) | KPI: "increased number of people with a chronic disease management plan in place with their GP." | A structured program a GP can wrap a chronic disease management plan around. |
The Plan has no chequebook. These are the funded and structural doors it points to.
The Plan publishes a public dashboard of "how will we know if we've made a difference" measures. We report in their language.
| What reMYnd + AiCarer measures | The Action Plan measure it feeds |
|---|---|
| Cardiorespiratory fitness, cognition, metabolic and risk scores over twelve months | Risk reduction and delayed onset and progression (Action 3) |
| Carer sleep, HRV, distress, quality of life, and healthcare utilisation | Carer wellbeing and sustainability of the care relationship (Action 6) |
| Consented longitudinal cohort data with anonymous participant codes | Improved dementia data and evidence translation (Action 8) |
| Members with a GP chronic disease management plan | The Action 4 chronic disease management KPI |
The Action Plan allocates no money on its own. It is a roadmap of actions and measures, not a budget line. The funding flows through the MRFF, MBS, state health and aged care. So we use the Plan to prove alignment and legitimacy, and we ask the funded programs for the cheque. Anyone who has read the Plan will respect you for drawing that line yourself.
Same program, three different doors. We never use the same pitch twice. Each buyer hears the layer that pays them.
Do not pitch ahm and Medibank as two targets. ahm is a Medibank brand. It is one group with two front doors: Medibank skews comprehensive and older, ahm skews value and younger. One relationship, two entry points. Treating them as separate logos signals you have not done the homework. ESTABLISHED
You do not win this in one meeting. You win it by arming the asset, landing the wedge, proving the signal, then scaling the contract. In that order.
Lock the evidence dossier (this is built). Secure the data and IP portability clause in the definitive agreement with AiCarer so the dataset stays a clean, sellable asset even though it co mingles with their infrastructure. Confirm the HREC protocol carries the wearable data stream. Get a one page scoping letter from a health economist, Griffith University's Centre for Applied Health Economics is the natural and proximate partner.
One warm introduction to a single insurer's health services or innovation team, not the sales team. Lead with the carer cohort, not with dementia prevention. Offer a pilot that costs them almost nothing to scope because it runs on their existing data. Your goal in this phase is not a contract. It is a yes to designing the pilot.
Run the carer micro study and the claims linkage. This generates the single number nobody in Australia currently has: the health system cost of carer ill health, and carer utilisation versus matched non carers. Whoever produces that number first owns the most cited datapoint in the category.
Convert the pilot into an outcomes based or shared savings contract with a pre agreed benchmark. Run the Queensland Health and Commonwealth conversations in parallel now that you have a signal, not a hypothesis. Align the evaluation with MYB+ so results compound rather than compete.
Insurer contracts, government endorsement, and a protected longitudinal dataset are not three wins. They are one compounding asset. Together they are what makes reMYnd acquirable, which is the exit the program was built for.
This is the table you hand the sceptic. Australian data leads. Where it does not exist, the proxy is labelled, never disguised.
| Claim we make | The number | Source | Flags |
|---|---|---|---|
| Direct dementia spend, one year | $4.7b (an underestimate) | AIHW, 2022 to 23 | EST AUS |
| Five year onset delay cuts prevalence | 44% lower by 2050 | Jorm, Dear & Burgess, 2005 | EST AUS |
| Two year onset delay saves per year | 14%, about $4b by 2040 | Vickland et al., 2011 | EST AUS |
| 5% incidence cut saves by 2056 | $120.4b cumulative | NATSEM / Brown et al., 2017 | EST AUS |
| Digital multidomain program is cost neutral with better cognition | about $467 / person difference, not significant; GCC z +0.18 | MYB CEA, Welberry et al., 2025 | EST AUS |
| Unpaid care replacement value | $77.9b per year | Deloitte Access Economics, 2020 | EST AUS |
| CVD attributable dementia burden | $6.45b to $17.57b over remaining life | Gao, Nguyen & Moodie, 2022 | EST AUS |
| Queensland prevalence growth to 2054 | +91%, 88,200 to 168,300 | Dementia Australia / AIHW, 2023 | EST AUS |
| Modifiable risk factors, lifespan | 45% linked, 14 factors | Lancet Commission, 2024 | EST upper bound |
| Health coaching ROI precedent | up to $9.89 per $1 | Hafiz et al. review, 2021 | PLAUS AUS |
| Carer support delays placement | about 1.5 years later | Mittelman et al. RCT (verify) | PLAUS US |
| Five year delay, national cost and prevalence | about 40% lower cost, 41% lower prevalence | Zissimopoulos et al., 2015 | EST US |
| Unpaid care exceeds the health budget | £162b vs £156b NHS | Carers UK, 2023 (no stable link, verify) | EST UK |
A scientifically trained audience trusts the person who names the gap. Each gap below is also a reason for the pilot. We turn every weakness into the rationale for the next phase.
There is no published Australian study putting a dollar cost on the health system impact of carer ill health. We will not fabricate one. The closest verified figure is that 42 per cent of carers struggle to access affordable health services.
No Australian study connects carer burden to private health insurance claims. The mechanism is well evidenced overseas. The Australian dollar attribution is missing.
MYB demonstrated cost neutrality with better outcomes over three years, not net cash savings. The long horizon savings are modelled, not yet observed.
reMYnd's expected effects are drawn from FINGER and MYB. They are not yet measured in our own cohort.
reMYnd is led by an Accredited Exercise Physiologist, Exercise Scientist and Nutritionist with 27 years of clinical experience, and a University of Queensland PhD candidate researching exercise and cognition in older adults. The science is not outsourced. It is the founder.
The Healthy Ageing Project, a free community approaching 20,000 members, is a trusted organic channel into exactly the midlife and regional Australians the system struggles to reach early. The strongest legitimacy lever for sceptical or editor run rooms is simple: we can put decision makers in front of the researchers directly.
And the motivation is real. The founder's mother lived with mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease. This is a category built by someone who has been the carer.
The system is already paying for dementia and carer breakdown. The only question on the table is whether it keeps paying after the crisis, or starts paying before it. We are the only program built to be paid for the second one.
Every figure in this report, grouped so you can click straight through. Australian sources first, then proxies, then the items flagged for verification.
Scope and integrity. Australian data is prioritised throughout. UK and US figures are used only as proxies where Australian data does not exist, and are labelled as such. Items tagged VERIFY require external confirmation before public citation, specifically: the exact Private Health Insurance funding pathway, the Zissimopoulos per person savings figure against the primary text, and current Queensland Health dementia expenditure from the AIHW state tables. Effect sizes for reMYnd are drawn from analogous trials and are not yet measured in the reMYnd cohort. The 45 per cent modifiable figure is a theoretical population attributable fraction framed as upper bound potential, not a guaranteed reduction. reMYnd is a commercial prevention program and is distinct from any academic research program.
reMYnd by Naomi Ferstera | in partnership with AiCarer | hello@remynd.com.au | remynd.com.au