5 minute read “Welcome to day one of your integrated care practicum. The first step you’ll take is to purchase two books and begin reading them right away. OK, let’s talk about Centricity!” Fall semester of 2009. I am a new student in the Medical Family Therapy doctoral program at East Carolina University (ECU). My […]
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 Is the Healthcare System Ready? Our current integrated care models break down silos between physical and behavioral health, allowing for comprehensive screening, warm handoffs, care coordination, and streamlined referrals. Many patients, though, have unmet social, material, AND behavioral health needs. Here are some examples. • A 40-year-old man experiencing homelessness struggles to […]
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 […]
5 minute read Most people wouldn’t think of CVS, Kroger, Walgreens, Walmart or Costco as their primary care home. Even fewer would consider these retailers as their behavioral health provider location. However, each of these retail giants is reaching for larger portions of the health care marketplace to supplement their core business. Consumers, frustrated […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
3 minute read. Original post available here Returning to the PCBH (Primary Care Behavioral Health) world after a week off is always an exciting, yet frightening experience. My mind always worries when returning to clinical work. “Will I still be able to do this?” “Do I still got what it takes?” And, then, all that doubt […]
Five minute read The title of this post is a terrible pick-up line, but it reflects my musings on how we identify patients in primary care who may benefit from behavioral health services. Health screening is standard practice in primary care. We screen for physical health, mental health, substance use, health behaviors, family functioning, social […]
5 Min Read. Filling that integrated care position at your clinic feel tough? You are not alone. Positions for mental health professionals of all types in primary care have grown in the last few years (see our job board and our map) and the options for mental health professionals have also expanded with telehealth uptake, […]
There are many good reasons for the strain and experience of burnout among healthcare professionals at-large and primary care teams specifically, but there may be a hidden factor affecting your integrated behavioral health staff that you may not have yet considered: role diffusion. The shorthand version for this phenomenon is, “your staff is trying to […]
3 minute read I am a little late to the game on this 2021 report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. But my tardiness does not diminish the appeal of the ideas that jump off the 428-pages of this document. These ideas, if implemented, would terraform the primary care landscape. A reliable […]
Five Minute Read We were curious about how our members utilize social media and connectivity tools, so we asked and they answered. The results are fascinating and will help us plan future efforts to support networking amongst the members of our association, the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association (CFHA). Why should you care? Well, read on […]
Five Minute Read Operating as a behavioral health consultant (BHC) in primary care has always demanded flexibility but never more so than during the pandemic. Things have changed significantly and it’s worthwhile for us to reflect on those changes, not with resistance, but simply with acknowledgment and mindfulness about what those changes mean. So, this […]
Our community is a rarity in the healthcare world. We do not represent a guild. We do not represent a sector of the healthcare industry. We do not represent a disease category. We represent an idea. That idea is that healthcare works best when professionals, in tandem with families and their communities, work together within […]
