How Micro-Skills Shape Patient Outcomes and Interprofessional Collaboration through fostering an integrated care model that brings together medical, behavioral, and allied health professionals to provide comprehensive, whole-person treatment. Through this post we will dive into the argument that communication functions as a core clinical and operational competency in not only integrated care, but effective care. […]
Two LMFTs explore career choice through the lens of family-of-origin and a drive towards systems change–Part II of II Reflections on an Unusual Upbringing This two-part blog was inspired by a conversation I had with Jess at the CFHA Conference in Raleigh. We shared stories about our unique upbringings and decided to collaborate on a […]
Part 1 of 2 Two LMFTs explore career choice through the lens of family-of-origin and a drive towards systems change. This series was inspired by a conversation in Raleigh at the end of Day 2 of the annual conference. Jess & Chus Is it fate? Destiny? A series of tiny nudges and moments?Is it a […]
By Neftali Serrano, PsyD Far too often, I hear the same weary refrain from healthcare professionals championing integrated care: “My leaders tell me that my integrated care program is just not making us enough money.” Let’s be clear—this isn’t a financial question. It’s a philosophical one dressed up in a spreadsheet. Because when a leadership […]
Why We Need Dedicated Integrated Care Directors — At Every Level of the Health System If you’ve spent any time in the integrated care space, you know the pattern: A grant funds a pilot. A bold health plan tries something innovative. A state rolls out a value-based model. Then people move on, funding dries up, […]
Third Culture Kids (TCKs) are children of expatriates who spend a significant part of their upbringing in a culture different from their own or their parents’ nationality. The term TCK stems from the presence of three cultural influences in their lives: their heritage culture(s), the host country culture(s), and the culture of expatriates and other TCKs. […]
Interestingly the word “Jenga” does not mean “angst derived from a predestinated tower of calamity.” Jenga’s roots are in Swahili from the word “kujenga” meaning “to build” (“Jenga”, 2025). Jenga got me thinking about integrated care on one of these fun Saturday nights. We take the warm handoff on the behavioral health side (or provide […]
I lift and share my voice (well… my lyrics—because my singing, at my children’s request, is reserved for showers and car rides) with you. Together, we are a chorus singing in exam rooms, classrooms, courtrooms, boardrooms, voting booths, chat rooms, and every room we can and do squeeze into. You may not always hear this […]
Introduction The Collaborative Family Healthcare Association (CFHA) recognizes the utility and potential for Measurement Based Care (MBC) as a core feature of high-quality integrated healthcare. MBC supports optimal clinical practice, demonstrates the value of integrated care teams, and improves outcomes. MBC is much more than simply administering behavioral health measures. Rather, it is an evidence-based, […]
Howard Thurman, a spiritual founder of the civil rights movement once wrote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” His words challenge us to resist stagnation, conformity, and systems that stifle our ability to effect meaningful change. […]
I’m going to make an argument here that the antidote to political uncertainty and rapid change in the healthcare landscape is community, particularly local community. And in so doing I’m also tying us to a promise that this community, the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association (CFHA), will be a nexus of moral strength and innovation for […]
If you are a clinician you know the feeling. It’s that moment in a care process with a patient where you could do more or choose to do less. You battle internally to decide what to do and ultimately you know you can’t live with yourself if you choose to do less. That’s our moment as […]
Tracing our Professional Lineage Years ago, I attended a gathering where the late family therapist Lynn Hoffman illustrated a colleague’s professional lineage by mapping out the influential figures in their career in a family tree format, like a genogram. Her friend and colleague Marcelo Pakman, a regular to these reunions, coined this exploration a “retroscope.” […]
3 minute read I was not ready to negotiate my first, “big boy” salary. Until that point, my pay rates were all decided by policies (e.g., minimum wage, graduate student stipends, teenager allowance). I didn’t have the moxie, or matching clothes, to negotiate. Growing up, salary talk was off the table, quite literally. My parents […]
By Neftali Serrano, PsyD, 2 Minute Read In recent years, the struggle to retain and recruit behavioral health providers has intensified within primary care. A closer examination of this trend reveals a significant underlying cause: the selection bias rooted in the mental health provider training process. This bias not only shapes the career preferences of […]
5 minute read The behavioral health field is failing to fulfill one of its essential social roles. Our main function is to help people resolve behavioral health issues, but our longstanding inability to make care accessible diminishes our social value. This is an issue of equity. People should be able to access behavioral care as […]
5 minute read A Provocative Question Recently, I attended a session on healthcare workforce development at the Arizona State of Reform conference in Phoenix. The State of Reform is a national organization that facilitates healthcare policy meetings across the country. This session focused on problems and opportunities related to healthcare workforce in Arizona. During the […]
4 minute read In our first blog post on March 3rd, 2023, we reported on efforts by the Primary Care Behavioral Health Special Interest Group (PCBH SIG) to advance the understanding of screening and outcome measurement in demonstrating the value of the integrated model of service delivery. Since that time a Measurement-Based Care (MBC) workgroup […]
