Name
Behavioral Health Integrated into Primary Care: Health Plan Opportunities
Description

Integrating behavioral health into primary care ensures that providers deliver timely, patient-centered, comprehensive whole-person care while expanding access to behavioral health services, improving patient outcomes, enhancing care team satisfaction and reducing total cost of care. In this session, we will: • Highlight learnings from a 2025 California payer workgroup collaborating to facilitate behavioral health integration implementation for providers • Map behavioral health integration adoption barriers specific to a carve-out state • Identify opportunities to engage plans around behavioral health integration

Speakers
Kristina Mody, Director, CQC, CA
Mary Nickel-Nguy DSW, LCSW, BHI, CQC, Sacramento,
Kristina Mody
Content Level
All Audience
Tags
Cost Effectiveness or Financial sustainability, Sustainability, Technical assistance
Session Type
Concurrent
SIG or Committee
None of the Above
Objective 1
Highlight learnings from a California payer workgroup collaborating to facilitate behavioral health integration implementation for providers
Objective 2
Map behavioral health integration adoption barriers specific to a carve-out state
Objective 3
Identify opportunities to engage plans around behavioral health integration
Content Reference 1

California Quality Collaborative - Sustainable Behavioral Health Integration Financing: Successful Practices and Opportunities (chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https:/www.calquality.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/CQC_BHI-FIN-Issue-Brief_October-2024.pdf)

Content Reference 2

CalHIVE Behavioral Health Integration (https://www.pbgh.org/initiative/calhive-behavioral-health-integration/)

Content Reference 3

California Quality Collaborative, “Weaving Together Mental and Physical Health Care Outside the Safety Net” (https://www.chcf.org/publication/weaving-together-mental-physical-health-care-outside-safety-net/)

Content Reference 4

Translational Behavioral Medicine, “Payment strategies for behavioral health integration in hospital-affiliated and non-hospital-affiliated primary care practices” (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35880768/)