Something Republicans and Democrats Can Agree On: Support for Integrated Behavioral Health

Barriers to the spread of integrated behavioral health and primary care continue to limit progress on meeting critical needs for mental health and substance use disorder services. The recent Bipartisan Policy Center Report (2021) provides key policy recommendations to address these barriers and accelerate the adoption of integrated behavioral health in Medicaid and Medicare. Having bipartisan support presents a policy window of opportunity to advance integrated behavioral health through advocacy for implementation of these recommendations, parallel changes to occur in employer-based and other commercial insurance plans, and development of operationalized standards for core service delivery elements.
During the nearly 50 years since the articulation of the biopsychosocial model as the desired way to provide health care (Engel, 1977), evidence has continued to mount indicating that there [...]