Oral

Integration of behavioral health with primary care is one of the aims of the Affordable Care Act. How well it is implemented has the potential for improvement in health outcomes for patients with co-occurring diagnoses. There are few models of successful integration of behavioral health into primary care -- although most of the successful models have left out addiction treatment and an even smaller number of examples of successful integration of primary care into behavioral health. This session will be framed around how care systems can achieve the four principles of quality in an integrated health model: care that is person-centeredness, population-based, data-driven, and evidence-based. The financial and operational realities and methods for measuring progress will be presented. Presentations will focus on the drivers for change and barriers that must be overcome to achieve the vision of improved care and avoid the nightmare that could be produced by suboptimal attempts at integration. The first presenter, William Reidy, MSW, will present an overview of what is known about models of behavioral health-primary care integration and how it is being implemented in the US; the second presenter, Nancy Paull, CEO, SSTAR, MA, will describe a behavioral health setting with integrated primary care services; Virna Little, PsyD, Institute for Family Health, NY will present a primary care model of integration. George Rust, MD, will serve as discussant to capture “lessons learned”, the realities of implementing these models, and how the ACA is anticipated to impact behavioral health integration models over time.