As a health care practitioner, you are often charged with effectively assessing and treating your patient’s medical needs in in only fifteen minutes. On top of this, you are also at the forefront of your patient’s mental health, as you are typically the first (and sometimes the only) health professional to whom a patient discloses behavioral or mental health symptoms. As our understanding of the connection between physical and mental health disorders has increased, there has been a greater call for collaborative care between medical and mental health professionals.
The collaborative care model is an evidenced-based approach to patient care. At its core, collaborative care calls for medical and mental health professionals to work together to provide patients with comprehensive treatment, recognizing the overwhelming research demonstrating the relationship between physical illness and mental health concerns. The benefits of these interdisciplinary efforts include: better patient health outcomes, greater follow-through with treatment recommendations, a higher quality of life and overall wellness, and an overall reduction in health care costs.
In response, primary care practitioners and mental health clinicians across the country are working together to provide more holistic, and effective care for patients.
What are the benefits of integrating mental health services into my practice?
- Not only can you improve your patients’ mental health status, but you can also improve their overall adherence to treatment and mortality rates. For example, for patients with heart disease, the presence of depression is correlated with a greater risk of a negative cardiac event, such as a heart attack or blood clots. In at least one study, the continued presence of depression after recovery from a heart attack increased the risk of death to 17% within 6 months, versus a 3% mortality rate for patients who did not suffer from depression. Research clearly demonstrates that patients whose mental health concerns are effectively treated typically live longer, in part because they are better able to follow through with treatment recommendations.
- Greater likelihood that patients will address mental and behavioral health needs. There’s a strong chance that you’ve had patients whom you’ve recognized had mental health concerns, and you’ve provided them with a referral to an appropriate provider. Unfortunately, studies demonstrate that 30 to 50% of patients do not follow through with an outpatient mental health referral. This can lead to your patient continuing to struggle with behavioral and mental health issues that not only impact their quality of life, but also decrease the odds that they will appropriately take care of their medical concerns.
- Lower overall health costs. Several studies have demonstrated that collaborative care (physicians and mental health providers working together) is correlated with health care cost savings. For example, long term cost analyses from a study in which depression was treated in a primary care setting demonstrated that patients who received collaborative care had significantly lower overall health care costs than those who received the standard treatment.
That all sounds great. But I’m already so busy. How can I possibly add mental health services to my plate?
We get it. With fifteen minutes for each patient and a mountain of paperwork, you already feel pressed for time. However, integrating mental health services into your practice can be easier than you think, and as you saw in the section above, can have long term benefits for your patients’ overall well-being. At Group Therapy Associates, we want to make it as convenient as possible for your practice to integrate mental health services into your overall treatment plan.
Our expert therapists are able to provide:
- Office Hours One of our trained therapists will develop an on-site schedule with your practice to address your patients’ mental and behavioral health concerns, freeing you to focus on medical needs.
- Concierge Services To help address logistical barriers, an available therapist will make every effort to meet with your patient at a time and location convenient for them. TeleServices are also available.
- Lunch and Learn Over lunch, a GTA clinician will provide education to your staff regarding mental and/or behavioral health concerns of interest. These topics include (but are not limited to): Substance Abuse, Depression, Anxiety, Trauma, and Marriage and Family Relationships.
- Professional Staff Services Concerned about physician and staff burnout? Our therapists will provide practical tools to manage stress, increase employee satisfaction, and address other wellness concerns that affect patient health teams. Not only can this improve patient care and help your practice run more efficiently, but also allow you to address caregiver burnout before its too late.
Finally, Group Therapy Associates also hosts Physicians and Clinicians–an annual meet and greet around the holidays for doctors, nurses, psychotherapists, and other health professionals in Northern Virginia to get to know each other in a fun, relaxed setting.
Contact our CEO, Esther Boykin, for more information regarding the value our services can provide to your practice. You can reach Ms. Boykin via phone at 703-644-8041 or by email at [email protected].
We also encourage you to sign up for our Physicians and Clinicians email list below for information regarding upcoming events and research related to the collaborative care model.