Team-based primary care with integrated mental health is associated with higher quality of care, lower usage and lower payments received by the delivery system

Primary Care Behavioral Health Integration

“…Although there are initial start-up costs with integrated care, when considered with the overall costs, it was less costly than usual care [2]. Patient value in integrated care was also clearly recognized by English in his retrospective look at over 113,000 patients treated in either integrated care or usual care, demonstrated by increased quality and decreased amount of care needed [1].…”

“…O ur current US health care system is undergoing massive structural reform as it moves to meet expectations of a future payment system predicated on value-based outcomes. Integrated care practice models meet this challenge as chronic medical and common behavioral health conditions have been shown to benefit from team-based care approaches that include integrated behavioral health providers [1][2][3]. It is well known that integrated care has been utilized as a model for some North Carolina health care provision, but many clinics that fall short of operating under its tenets may face challenges in meeting both their populations' presenting medical and behavioral health needs, and the trend toward value-based outcomes.…”

“…Reiter states that PCBH models retain about 90% of behavioral health concerns and refer more acute cases to collaborating specialty mental health providers [10]. Reduced costs for patients treated in the PCBH model lead to greater patient satisfaction [1,2,10]. In addition, utilization of PCP visits has been shown to be lower during the BHP's service period and for up to 12 months thereafter with significant improvement over usual care, even for patients with severe and persistent mental illness [11,12].…”