FY 2024 Behavioral Health Service Expansion - Our proposed project includes the hiring of a Director of Behavioral Health and 2 therapists. Under the stewardship of a Director, we hope to increase our total MH/SUD FTEs from 1.75 to 4.75. Adding a Director of Behavioral Health will aid our services in maturing in response to the needs in our service area. In addition to creating a recruitment and retention strategy for behavioral health clinicians, the Director will be tasked with the design of a continuing education plan that is responsive to the specific needs of our patient population and continues to evolve as those needs change. The growth of this department includes the addition of substance use disorder services in the therapeutic environment. The hiring of a designated behavioral health patient service representative will improve behavioral health schedules and allow for closer management of patient panels, creating efficiencies and maximizing access to services. The addition of a 0.6 FTE FNP to our prescribing team would increase the number of patients we can provide with MOUD services. At this time we have a very small MOUD panel (about 23 patients). Adding a prescriber and offering additional training on MOUD services in the primary care setting would allow us to expand our services in a safe and deliberate way; provider education being paramount to success. The Reach Institute’s Behavioral Health in Primary Care course is an example of this type of training. It is designed for primary care providers treating patients with behavioral health needs. Patient call volume, prescription refill requests, and general triage needs will increase with the expansion of MOUD and MH/SUD services. The addition of 1.0 FTE RN Triage Nurse to the team will help absorb this added volume. With added staff and expanded services, we would need to hire a Director of Operations. We have a very small administrative team who wear many hats, but with growth in services, we will necessarily need to expand management. We propose adding 1.0 FTE Director of Operations with funds from this grant. Our mission as a CHC is to find ways to provide services to all, without barriers. We understand that living a healthy life requires more than providing traditional medical and behavioral health services – we also need to connect our patients to the resources they need to live their healthiest lives. This is often food and housing resources, transportation planning, or connection to affordable medications. This may mean providing translation or interpretation services, or having ADA compliant buildings. We currently assist our patients in all of these ways, and we hired a Community Health Worker who will respond to the social determinants of health screeners performed during routine medical visits and respond to direct referrals. This will be an added layer of support for our patients – connecting them with services and resources they need to be physically well, mentally well, safe, and in many cases what will ultimately lead to their success in sobriety. We work hard to reduce stigma associated with receiving care. The beauty of providing all services under one roof is no one knows what service you are at the health center to receive. It also means that your care team, often comprised of a primary care provider, psychiatric nurse practitioner, and therapist, all work together in the same EHR ensuring real time access to one another for consultation. All medical and behavioral health providers also meet monthly for Integrated Behavioral Health meetings to discuss complex cases and brainstorm ways to best help patients succeed. We feel very confident in our model, but know that there are ways that we can become stronger and serve more patients. We hope that by adding more providers and support staff, we will be able to provide even better care that is more responsive, more robust, and continues to break down barriers to care.
