Present Situation:
One in five (roughly 43.8 million) Americans lives with a mental health conditioni, but nearly 60 percent of these individuals do not receive services.ii Left untreated, mental illness leads to higher morbidity, increased risk of chronic health conditions, and recurring hospitalizations, placing an excessive burden on the healthcare system.
Problems/Barriers to Care:
Treatment for mental illness is delayed or ignored for a variety of reasons. Some of these reasons are listed below. For details and more statistics, please refer to Voices for Health’s (VFH’s) Operational Plan.
- Stigma- prevents up to 75% of people with treatable mental health conditions from seeking care.iii
- Challenges navigating health insurance and affording the cost of treatment
- Difficulty screening potential providers
- Long waiting lists
- 70% of patients lose hope before they have a chance to benefit from treatmentiv
- Lack of integration between mental health and primary care
- Lack of medication adherence
- Difficulty arranging transportation to appointments
- Shortage of psychiatrists who treat people with serious mental illnesses (SMIs)
Solution:
VFH removes barriers to care so that more patients can receive timely access to quality mental health services. Through our Patient Navigation and Care Coordination Program, we offer individualized case management services and assistance navigating the healthcare system. This program is led by a Patient Engagement Advocate (licensed social worker) who supports patients at every step along their journey beginning with empowering them to seek help, screening potential providers, navigating health insurance issues, scheduling and arranging transportation to appointments, following patients to ensure they continue to see their therapist, and working with family members and primary care physicians (PCPs) to ensure they maintain their gains during and after treatment. We take the Patient Navigator model, which has been widely shown to reduce health disparitiesv, a step further by helping patients navigate the healthcare system throughout the full course of treatment for a mental illness, not just for a specific procedure. We offer financial assistance to patients who cannot afford to see a behavioral health specialist and find alternate sources of support for patients who are on waiting lists. We also educate PCPs about ways to address stigma around mental health in clinical settings and support them in successfully obtaining referrals to specialists. No other organization offers this comprehensive suite of services.
Benefits:
More patients receiving timely access to quality mental health care will result in:
- Fewer re-hospitalizations for SMIs
- Less overutilization of healthcare services for physical health complaints that originate from SMIs
- Less burden on PCPs to manage mental health conditions and the chronic health conditions that are associated with them
- Improved medication adherence for psychiatric prescriptions
Next Steps:
VFH seeks to offer the above services as a program within a large hospital or comprehensive community health center in the metro Boston area. The ideal provider organization will have a commitment to integrating mental health into primary care as well as an interest in reducing stigma and improving access to timely, quality care for all people with mental health conditions.