This panel explores innovative and collaborative approaches to addressing behavioral health, suicide prevention, provider shortages, and access to care in rural communities, including the unique needs experienced within agricultural populations. Through interdisciplinary partnerships and community-centered strategies, panelists will discuss how integrating behavioral health, primary care, public health, wellness initiatives, and lived experience can strengthen rural systems of care and improve outcomes for underserved populations.

This symposium brings together four perspectives to examine where primary care AI stands today and what it will take to make it work for behavioral health integration: the current landscape of AI tools and adoption; concerns about AI data accuracy and validity; real-world technology infrastructure from integrated care practice; and a new informatics initiative designed for smaller, independent practices. The panel discussion will address what the field must do to ensure AI advances equity rather than deepens the divide between well-resourced and under-resourced care settings.

Topics To Be Covered

• The Current State of AI in Primary Care
• Validity, Accuracy, and Trust in AI-Generated Healthcare Data
• Technology Infrastructure Supporting Behavioral Health Integration
• Responding to the PCIL: The Primary Care Informatics Laboratory (PCIL)
• Panel Discussion: The Future of Primary Care AI and Behavioral Health Integration

Heading into the 2026 midterms, health care affordability has become the defining economic concern for voters across party lines — creating pressure that is actively reshaping what is politically viable in Washington and what is not. This session offers a candid, grounded assessment of what the second Trump administration's health policy agenda means for integrated, team-based care: tracing the first-year record from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act's Medicaid restructuring and the expiration of ACA enhanced subsidies, to the consolidation of SAMHSA and HRSA into the new Administration for a Healthy America, to the rollout of the MAHA agenda and its emphasis on chronic disease prevention and whole-person care. The picture is not one-dimensional — federal coverage losses and behavioral health funding pressures pose serious near-term challenges, while the administration's investment in models like MAHA ELEVATE and its philosophical focus on root-cause, lifestyle-based approaches reflect genuine, if imperfect, alignment with integrated care's core premises. Attendees will leave with a clear-eyed view of the threats, a realistic map of the opportunities, and practical strategies for advancing integrated care at the state level and through payment reform — regardless of who controls Washington.