Behavioral health services have become increasingly vital in healthcare, reflecting the growing demand for mental health care providers. To meet this need, significant policy changes and updates have been introduced to improve access to behavioral health services. In this blog post, we’ll explore the new proposed physician fee schedule for 2024 and its potential impact […]
How the Placebo Effect Can Improve Therapeutic Outcomes for Pain
Original post available here. The placebo effect, defined as symptom improvement following delivery of an inert substance, is often cast in a negative light, as a confounder during research and indication of malingering among certain patients. However, studies indicate just the opposite: placebo can improve symptoms of pain and discomfort, due to specific neurochemical responses […]
The Worker Shortage Crisis: Making Behavioral Healthcare an Attractive Career Option
3 minute read Last August I wrote about the long wait times for individuals in need of mental health services. Soon after that post, the American Psychological Association published survey results in November 2022 showing that 60% of psychologists cannot accept new patients, while 72% have longer wait lists than before the pandemic. A 2023 […]
Patient Attribution: The System that Integrated Care Needs for Survival
Riddle me this: I am a system that is active and essential in healthcare, but a complete mystery to most healthcare professionals. Answer: a patient attribution system! Hopefully you did not peek at the title of my post. Did you get the right answer? Don’t worry if you did not guess a patient attribution system. […]
Resilience: The Science of Bouncing Back
Original post available here. Resilience is described as the ability to recover and grow in the face of stressors and changing demands (Deuster & Silverman, 2013). A lot of research about resilience has come from the US military, triggered a decade back by troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with severe emotional trauma. There is […]
Teaching Clinicians at the National Level: My Experience with the STFM Addiction Medicine Project
4 minute read Every week I receive solicitations in my physical mailbox for clinical trainings on a variety of topics like trauma-informed care, grief counseling, mindfulness, and more. They never stop coming! I wonder who sent these companies my address. These trainings are usually live or recorded webinars with handouts, sometimes with a well-known expert […]
After Human Trafficking: Ghananian Women Find Empowerment and Healing Through Spirituality
4 minute read Growing up in poverty in the slums of Kumasi, Ghana, 18-year-old Abina longed for a better life. Her pastor talked to her about job opportunities in other countries, and with his help, Abina signed up with an organization that promised great pay and benefits. Staff helped her get a passport and a […]
The Integrated Care Map Turns Three!
Three years ago the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association (CFHA) set out to report on the spread of integrated care across the United States primary care system. Our initial report on findings in 2020 elicited interesting findings on the breadth and types of care being provided. Here we provided updated data which appears to demonstrate greater […]
Measuring Success in PCBH: Results from a Workgroup on Behavioral Health Screening
3 minute read In spring 2022, CFHA CEO Neftali Serrano approached the Primary Care Behavioral Health Special Interest Group (PCBH SIG) to begin the work of catalyzing standardized outcomes for measuring success in a PCBH environment. This invitation was warmly received as the role of the PCBH SIG is to grow interest and enthusiasm, provide […]
CFHA Conducts First-Ever Behavioral Health Workforce in Integrated Care Salary Survey
Neftali Serrano, CEO of CFHA, first approached me in late 2021 to design and distribute a salary survey to the integrated care workforce. I looked at my overloaded plate and thought, “This is too good to pass up”. So, I made room on the plate. As an educator, I’ve been involved in workforce projects for […]
Can Religion and Spirituality Help with Managing Chronic Pain?
Original post available here Our current medical system derives largely from the biomedical model, which focuses on physical causes for disease. The more recent bio-psychosocial model posits that other factors, including your emotional state, support system (friends and family), and the environment also play a role, both in the development of disease and its prognosis. […]
Federal Funding Opportunities: Is Your Clinic a Candidate for an Award?
US federal government agencies are currently accepting applications for large grant awards to address behavioral health patient needs across the country. Your healthcare organization may be a good candidate for one of these awards! Even if you are not funded, the exercise of grant writing will help you imagine the possibilities of improving your organization […]
Primary Care’s Moonshot Program For The Next Decade
5 Minute Read There is no single issue in the movement to integrate physical and behavioral health system that trumps the workforce shortage and training problem. Primary care needs a moonshot initiative to bridge that gap. I have some ideas. They are mine alone – I can’t speak for all of the Collaborative Family Healthcare […]
Mental Healthcare: Maybe the Treatment Doesn’t Match the Diagnosis
5 minute read Most of my training and career have focused on the individual or family sitting in front of me asking for relief from their suffering. I have spent many hours learning how to engage, evaluate, and treat complex human beings who walk through the clinic door. It’s hard and rewarding work; but the […]
Behaviorists In Family Medicine Deserve An Upgrade
5 Minute Read Family medicine residency programs have long had behaviorists as part of the educational experience for physicians-in-training, but the role has not kept up with the many changes in training and healthcare over the last few decades. And so you have behavioral science faculty with unclear and often conflicting mandates for their work, […]
President Biden’s Plan for Integrated Behavioral Health
Maybe one of the only positives of the COVID-19 pandemic has been an increase in attention to the long-standing crisis in behavioral health and the movement to address the systemic barriers which prevent people from getting care. President Biden has announced a national strategy to address the mental health crisis. The Department of Health and […]
Helping a Husband Be More Than a “Pillar of Strength”
Original post available here. One day, while working as a clinical psychologist in a primary care practice, I was asked by the family doctor scheduled to meet that morning with Lisa, a 72-year-old woman with moderate dementia, to stop by and see her 75-year-old husband, Dennis, for counseling for possible depression. Within the hour, I […]
Forum: Which Discipline Creates the Best BHC?
3 minute read. Original post available here Hi everyone! As you can tell from the title of this post, today in the CFHA blog we are going to take on the age-old question “Which discipline creates the best BHC?” I hope that it highlights the strengths our varied disciplines bring to integrated care! I asked […]