Lack of access to mental health treatment continues to plague the United States healthcare system (SAMHSA, 2022) and has only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic (Czeisler et al., 2020). Integrated care approaches, such as the Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH, Reiter et al., 2018) model, aim to address these access barriers by fully imbedding behavioral health providers within primary care teams. However, simply embedding such BHPs may not address access concerns if traditional mental health approaches are simply replicated or even scaled down. Thus, embracing concepts such as Single Session or Moment at a Time approaches, which continue to grow in popularity and research supporting its effectiveness (Deisenhofer et al., 2024; Ghosh et al., 2023; Shen et al., 2023), are being embraced within PCBH settings to amplify the model’s inherent intent to provide accessible high-quality care. This presentation will detail Community Health of Central Washington’s journey in embracing and implementing a Moment at a Time approach within its PCBH service. Specifically, outcomes regarding patient experiences, visit descriptions (e.g., average number of visits, length of visits), and unique patients served will be presented, as well discussions of how this Moment at a Time approach has influenced CHCW’s BHPs joy with their work.
Bridget Beachy PsyD, Director of Primary Care Behavioral Health, Community Health of Central Washington, Yakima, WA
