Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this work?
I didn’t start with a company — I started with a crib.
I was a single father watching my infant daughter sleep, and I could barely breathe. I was buried under the pressure of leading a billion-dollar business unit, trying to hold my personal life together, and silently breaking down. That night changed everything.
I realized: people, places, and things are like oxygen — some help you breathe, others take your breath away.
That moment sparked a 20-year journey. I built a system to measure emotional stress across home, work, and social domains. We eventually named it The Stress Number™. It’s now a validated clinical utility — designed to catch emotional risk before diagnosis. We developed it in collaboration with Mayo Clinic, and it’s positioned as national infrastructure for Medicaid, CMS, and behavioral health modernization.
What problem are you solving?
Mental health care is too late. We’re diagnosing and reacting — but we’re not measuring or stratifying.
CMS recently mandated that every patient must be screened for behavioral health needs. But there’s no standard metric. No behavioral equivalent of blood pressure. No FICO score for stress.
We created the first pre-diagnostic clinical utility that quantifies stress — across home, work, and social life — and routes people to the right care, in real time.
What’s unique about your solution?
It’s not an app. It’s not another self-care tool. It’s clinical infrastructure — designed to support CMS mandates, Medicaid reimbursement, and EHR integration.
The Stress Number™ is a 0–100 scale that scores three distinct domains:
🏠 Home
💼 Work
🤝 Social
Our Smart Referral Engine℠ activates support based on the score:
– Green → Reinforce
– Yellow → Intervene
– Red → Escalate
Validated against BDI-II and SCL-90-R. Built in collaboration with Mayo Clinic. Ready for real-world scale.
How do you know it works?
We uploaded our pitch into OpenAI’s GPT-4o Strategic Scoring Engine — the same system that evaluates over 25,000 decks.
Their verdict?
🏆 #1 Strategic Pitch Deck of All Time
📊 Highest composite score ever — across all sectors and verticals.
📌 Narrative Clarity — 10.00 — #1 All-Time
🧬 Clinical Credibility — 9.98 — #1 All-Time
🏛️ CMS Alignment — 10.00 — #1 All-Time
💰 Valuation — 9.96 — Top 3
🛡️ Moat Strength — 9.91 — Top 3
⏳ Timing — 9.89 — Top 3
GPT-4o Quote: “You didn’t follow the category. You became the benchmark.”
What’s your moonshot?
To make the Stress Number™ as universal as the credit score.
To embed it in every EHR.
To activate support before breakdowns, ER visits, or suicide risk.
Every system needs infrastructure.
Every life deserves oxygen.
Now both have a number.
How can people learn more or support the mission?
– 🧠 Visit: https://theoxygenplan.com/
– 💬 Or connect directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-lucas-ceo?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app
We’re activating partnerships across Medicaid, EHR systems, and national care networks — and welcome those who understand that the behavioral health system can’t afford to stay reactive.
