HHS supports strategies to drive the integration of behavioral health into the healthcare system to strengthen and expand access to mental health and substance use disorder treatment and recovery services for individuals and families. HHS is enhancing the ability to serve those in need of behavioral health services by exchanging data, information, and resources while expanding evidence-based integrated systems of behavioral and physical healthcare to improve equitable access to quality care. HHS is also engaging and educating healthcare providers, healthcare professionals, paraprofessionals, other health workforce professionals, and students in these professions to build their practice competence and capacity to address the behavioral and physical health needs of individuals, families, and communities. Below is a selection of strategies HHS is implementing.
In the context of HHS, this Strategic Plan adopts the definition of underserved populations listed in Executive Order 13985: Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities through the Federal Government to refer to "populations sharing a particular characteristic, as well as geographic communities, who have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life"; this definition includes individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality. Individuals may belong to more than one underserved community and face intersecting barriers.
Contributing OpDivs and StaffDivs
ACL, ASPE, AHRQ, CDC, CMS, FDA, HRSA, IHS, NIH, OASH, OCR, OGA, and SAMHSA work to achieve this objective.
Strategies
Strengthen a fragmented behavioral and physical health system to reduce costs, enhance quality care and patient experience, and improve mental health and substance use disorder outcomes for individuals and families
- Use existing policy levers to encourage clinically-effective integrated care models (e.g. financial incentives to support multidisciplinary team care or co-location of services.).
- Increase equitable access to care, including bi-directional integration, where physical and behavioral health providers coordinate and deliver care, and expand telehealth options.
- Examine how science, data, and evidence support and inform programs and policies across HHS that prioritize behavioral and physical health integration.
Expand evidence-based integrated systems of behavioral and physical healthcare to improve equitable access to quality care
- Assist states and communities with the development and implementation of effective crisis services and systems, including quick, easy, and reliable access to emotional support and crisis counselling and community-based mobile crisis intervention services.
- Expand payment models to support integration of behavioral health and physical healthcare to include other qualified provider types and modalities, including telehealth, across HHS healthcare programs and public payers.
- Support states, tribal, local, territorial, and rural communities to access and develop resources and processes to facilitate wider use of effective evidence-based integrated care models.
- Promote the development of effective educational resources and dissemination approaches to improve public understanding of mental and substance use disorders and when to seek treatment, with a focus on efforts to effectively address overdose death, death by suicide, and non-fatal self-harm.
Connect physical health and behavioral health communities to enhance the ability to serve those in need of integrated health services by exchanging data, information, and resources
- Facilitate collaborations with health officials, behavioral health authorities, and national provider networks to develop sustainable activities and pathways to integration with common performance measures that achieve standards of excellence in integrated care.
- Identify opportunities to expand linkage and use of electronic health records and other related data to identify unmet needs and help improve access, equity, quality, and value.
- Promote research to build the evidence base and best practices, including implementation science research to support the scale up of effective models to identify and treat behavioral and physical health issues of individuals in all healthcare settings, including primary care.
- Strengthen health equity research to highlight the diversity of populations, communities and researchers and to ensure that evidence-based treatments are available across race, ethnicity, national origin (including primary language), sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, pregnancy, geographic location, and other demographics.
Engage and educate healthcare providers, healthcare professionals, paraprofessionals, other health workforce professionals, and students in these professions to build their practice competence and capacity to address the mental health and substance use disorder needs of individuals, families, and communities
- Support a health workforce including community health workers and peer support specialists knowledgeable in behavioral and physical health interdisciplinary care.
- Enhance the capacity of physical health providers to assess, screen, and treat behavioral health conditions by increasing access to treatments for substance use disorders and other disorders and assisting behavioral health providers to coordinate with individuals, families, and communities.
