Roughly one in five older adults experiences a mental health condition, according to the National Poll on Healthy Aging. As a result, more providers are recognizing behavioral health as part of their overall health care strategies
Senior-focused provider network WellMed is among the companies that have made behavioral health a priority. The San Antonio, Texas-based organization wants its primary care providers, in fact, to be able to refer patients to behavioral health services “in as few clicks as possible.”
Yet starting a mental health service from scratch poses a number of challenges.
Namely, WellMed is not a delegated behavioral health provider for insurers. That means team members must look to partnerships as an alternative.
“I think the key piece is making it as easy as possible for a PCP to make a behavioral health referral, because, PCPs, they’re responsible for everything,” Daniel Holland, a behavioral health clinical manager at WellMed, told Behavioral Health Business. “They’re viewing the patient holistically, especially while we’re taking a lot of time with patients. And they don’t oftentimes have unlimited time to delve into behavioral health.”
WellMed is a network of doctors, specialists and clinicians focused on caring for the senior population through value-based care. Founded in 1990, the organization includes more than 18,000 doctor’s offices across Texas and Florida.
The company is now part of OptumCare. It accepts traditional Medicare and a number of Medicare Advantage plans.
However, partnerships provide additional opportunities for more holistic care, said Holland. They can also cut through the black box of information after a provider refers a patient for behavioral health treatment.
“With our partnerships, … we are able to close the loop and say, ‘Here is the provider that made the referral.’ We can get back with them and say, ‘This is who is seeing them. This is the date that we’re seeing them.’ If there are any technical issues, we can go back, because we meet with them weekly,” January Gjerdevig, a social worker at WellMed, told BHB. “And then we can provide that ongoing, real-time information for that provider, especially if they’re specifically concerned for that patient.”
Currently, the network is working with two telemedicine companies: iCare and Brave.
Holland said that, in particular, the telemedicine partnerships help cut down on wait times. The wait time for patients to see a mental health provider is now between 14 and 21 days. To put that in perspective the Association for Behavioral Healthcare report the average wait time for an initial assessment from a mental health provider is 13.6 weeks.
“The demand far outstrips the supply for behavioral health care in a given area. But telehealth allows us to overcome that by connecting patients with therapists throughout the state. So we can drive that wait time lower,” Holland said. “And so our main strategy is creating external partnerships with behavioral providers that use telemedicine.”
Patient privacy is a core part of these partnerships. In order for information to be shared between providers, there is an extra layer of consent from patients.
“The patient has to sign a release of information, … because we believe behavioral health need[s] an extra level of protection because it’s extra sensitive, meaning the real information impacts family dynamics, relationships and people’s lives,” Holland said. “There’s a lot of nuanced detail contained in behavioral health information. So there is that extra release that’s required for patients.”
WellMed is also leveraging technological services Smartsheet and Leading Reach to help enable secure information sharing.
While WellMed began its partnership journey with telehealth providers, it is open to expanding to team up with brick-and-mortar locations in the future.
“As the pandemic is, to some degree, winding down, if we can say that, there are people that just ultimately, especially with the older population, the senior population, they want to see somebody in-person,” Gjerdevig said. “And so where the tele-platform was so helpful during this time of crisis and emergency, we’re really seeing that return to wanting to see people in person.”
