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Integrating Physical and Behavioral Health Care Systems: Lessons Learned in New York City
In New York City, as elsewhere, people with mental illnesses have worse physical health outcomes, on average, than the rest of the population. An estimated 239,000 New Yorkers live with serious mental illnesses, or SMI (Community Mental Health Survey 2012). They are significantly more likely to...
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The Challenges of Integrated Health Care
One of the most talked about issues in both the behavioral health and medical field is the integration of behavioral and physical health services. In fact, SAMHSA has reworked their definition of recovery to include physical health: A process through which individuals improve their health and...
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The Vital Role of Behavioral Health: Driving Better Health Outcomes by Integrating Services
Behavioral and physical healthcare in New York State are going through an unprecedented transformation. Medicaid redesign, implementation of a health benefit exchange, a transition from fee-for-service to managed behavioral healthcare, integration of behavioral health with primary healthcare,...
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The Pathway to Integrating the Healthcare System: Integrated Licensure and Health Homes
New York’s Medicaid program serves over 5 million enrollees with a broad array of health care needs and challenges. The Medicaid program serves many population groups with complex medical, behavioral, and long-term care needs that drive a significant volume of high cost services including...
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Towards Seamless Integration: Advocating for Reform
Many people with serious mental illnesses have difficulty accessing primary care or do not feel comfortable in primary care settings, for a host of reasons. Often, they have experienced trauma, resulting in trust issues that impact their ability to form relationships with new providers. As a...
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Integrated Treatment for Successful Aging
Contrary to the ageist assumptions of modern society, it is possible to age well. This being so, physical and behavioral health providers ought to ask themselves what they can do to promote successful aging. Part of the answer, of course, is just to provide good treatment for physical and...
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Upgrading Skills in a Changing Mental Health Care Environment
As healthcare has changed over time, so too has the knowledge and expertise required of the practitioners. Computer literacy for electronic medical records, knowledge and application of research and evidence-based best practices, and patient satisfaction are but a few of the most recent...
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Behavioral Health Medical Homes: An Approach to Integrated Care
At first I was scared. I started skipping my appointments with my therapist and also Dr. Levy. I did not want to deal with it. But then my therapist and the doctor called me at home. They told me I was not alone, and they wanted to help me. That made all the difference. I came in. The doctor took...
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Integrated Care Models to Improve Health Outcomes and Reduce Poverty
FEGS Health & Human Services, in partnership with the Institute for Family Health (IFH), Healthfirst, Bronx-Lebanon Hospital, McSilver Institute of New York University, Mount Sinai Hospital, and Promoting Specialized Care and Health (PSCH) has been awarded a $925,000 grant from the Robin Hood...
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Integrated Health Care: A Life Saving Concept in Search of a Functional Reality
Integrated health care has become the new “buzz word” of an era ushered in by the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its associated elements of health care reform. More than a buzz word it signifies an approach to medical care for high risk people faced by multiple life threatening...
