FY 2024 Behavioral Health Service Expansion - Tri-Area Community Health (TACH; H80CS00446) is located in rural, mountainous, Southwestern Virginia. TACH’s service area includes 5 counties and 1 independent city – approximately 2,500 square miles. The city and all but one of the counties are located in Appalachia. The service area cuts across three different health districts, which means that access to medical, mental health, and substance use disorder (SUD) care may vary significantly across jurisdictions. TACH has offered integrated care, with patients receiving services from both medical and behavioral health providers, for many years, and recently started incorporating Clinical Pharmacists into treatment teams. However, TACH’s focus has been on medical and mental health care, with very little emphasis placed on SUD services. The TACH Behavioral Health Service Expansion Project will build on this successful integrated care program and incorporate SUD services. TACH will shift a current medical provider and a current behavioral health provider (BHP), both of whom have experience with Medication Assisted Treatment, into substance use treatment positions, will hire an additional BHP, and hire a part-time physician to support the behavioral health program as well as the SUD providers. Other new personnel for the SUD and BH programs will include a care coordinator and a nurse to assist the providers and the patients. Three Peer Recovery Specialists, who may be cross-trained as Community Health Workers, will be hired and placed in different parts of the service area. Further, TACH will provide training for current medical and BH providers as well as pharmacists to encourage referral for, and treatment using, Medications for Opioid Use Disorder. This training may include a special Project ECHO for FQHCs. TACH will more fully integrate SBIRT and SDOH screening with all patients, which should increase referrals to services as well as increase assistance for all patients. TACH also will continue building its group counseling and support group program. Further, TACH has school-based health clinics that include both medical and BH services and these will offer additional educational opportunities for students, families, and school staff. In addition, TACH will partner with a regional university to become a training site for behavioral health training programs. TACH’s medical and behavioral health providers already use telehealth to offer care and this approach will be continued and expanded. In addition, TACH has a mobile unit that will be incorporated into this project to increase access to care in locations far from existing clinics and for people who lack transportation. Finally, TACH will apply to become an Office Based Addiction Treatment Program through the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (i.e., Virginia Medicaid). This will allow TACH to be a more complete part of the continuum of care (at ASAM levels 0.5 and 1.0) in collaboration with partners including the two hospitals, three departments of health, three community services boards (i.e., community mental health centers), and three free clinics in the TACH service area. TACH also will collaborate with specialty treatment centers, re-entry councils, and substance use coalitions in the service area. As a result of the above steps, the TACH Behavioral Health Service Expansion Project will increase the number of TACH patients who receive mental health services and the number of TACH patients who receive Substance Use Disorder services, including patients who receive treatment with Medications for Opioid Use Disorder.
