Healthcare Innovation: Keys to Putting Behavioral Health Integration into Practice

From Healthcare Innovation: Integration with primary care remains an urgent goal for improved behavioral care outcomes.  During a recent webinar, physician leaders from Penn Medicine and the Department of Veteran Affairs described the impact of integration efforts in their organizations. The June 21 webinar was hosted by the American Medical Association (AMA), which in collaboration with Manatt Health has developed a report articulating the opportunities and challenges of incorporating virtual care (telehealth) and other digital tools to accelerate the adoption of behavioral health integration. Matthew Press, M.D., is the physician executive of Penn Primary Care and the medical director of the Primary Care Service Line at Penn Medicine. In these roles, he helps lead clinical operations, practice transformation, and population health management across a network of 90 primary care practices in the University of Pennsylvania Health System. Prior to his positions with Penn Medicine, Press was a member of the senior leadership team at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation at CMS, where he helped develop and implement several new payment and care delivery models including ACOs, bundled payments, integrated mental health, and medical homes. He also worked with the Health Care Payment Learning and Action Network, a national public-private partnership dedicated to health care payment reform.