Day-to-day behaviors such as diet, exercise and sleep profoundly affect health, but primary care doctors rarely have enough time to discuss such behavioral health changes to inspire improvement. A Rutgers Health study published in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine identified six critical strategies for doing better and successfully integrating behavioral health services into primary care settings and improving patient lives.
More than 70% of primary care visits have some behavioral health component, said lead author Ann Nguyen, an assistant research professor at the Center for State Health Policy within the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research. Yet conventional primary care visits offer physicians little time to address these issues comprehensively. “The typical primary care doctor spends 15 to 20 minutes with you, tops,” Nguyen said. “That’s not enough time for somebody with a complex condition to tackle everything that’s going on.”
The researchers examined 10 federally qualified health centers and community health centers in New Jersey that implemented the “Cherokee Model” of integrated care between 2013 and 2019 and continued offering integrated behavioral health services three years after initial funding ended. To read the full story.