BREAKDOWN: Read the Denver Post investigative series on mental health in Colorado.
Colorado will receive $65 million of federal funds to help bring mental health treatment into primary-care doctors’ offices, part of a plan to make sure more Coloradans receive mental health treatment when they need it.
Gov. John Hickenlooper on Tuesday announced the grant, designed to reward state innovation, after months of work by a team of experts examining ways to improve coordination between mental health care and other medical care. Colorado will spend the money during the next four years.
National studies have shown people are far more likely to start and complete mental health therapy when it is offered in the same place as their primary care doctor. Treatment drops off dramatically when patients are referred to separate mental health clinics.
Colorado will spend the grant helping primary care doctors transform their practices to incorporate mental health professionals. A major part of the project is a health information technology plan that connects patient information on physical and mental health care, said Dr. Benjamin Miller, director of the Farley Health Policy Center at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.
“We want to transform how we pay for health care to make it much more inclusive, including mental health,” said Miller, who worked on the grant project.
The new health care model would focus on treating the “whole patient,” and the payment plan would move away from the fee-for-service model that pays per procedure and toward a whole-health model.
The Denver Post examined Colorado’s frayed mental health system and looked at how an integrated model of physical and mental health services can work, in a four-part series last month.
The federal government is giving out $665 million to states, but Colorado is one of 10 chosen as test sites and receiving more funds for health systems, said Vatsala Pathy, director of the state innovation model at the governor’s office. The project affects people with private insurance, Medicare, Medicaid and the government-funded Children’s Health Insurance Program.
In Colorado, the innovation project is intended to tie insurance payments to health outcomes and engage people in their own health care.
“We understand the connections between mind and body, and integration of behavioral health with physical health services is a critical need for Colorado and our nation,” said Susan E. Birch, executive director for the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing, which will administer the funds.
Several agencies, including CU, the Colorado Health Institute and the Center for Improving Value in Health Care, worked on the grant proposal. Colorado earlier received $2 million in federal funds to plan the project.
Jennifer Brown: 303-954-1593, jenbrown@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jbrowndpost
BREAKDOWN: Read the Denver Post investigative series on mental health in Colorado.
