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Tags Posts tagged with "integrated health care"

integrated health care

In recent months, Pennsylvania’s Learning Community has focused on challenges to financing and payment for mental health care in the primary care and collaborative care settings. The SAMHSA-HRSA Center for Integrated Health Solutions (CIHS) has provided the field with an array of information, presentations, and other resources related to the financing of mental health services in primary care and integrated care settings. Below are some of the resources that CIHS has made available to us here in Pennsylvania.

  • The ability to bill for both behavioral health and primary care services on the same day is an essential part of integrating care. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) created the Billing Properly for Behavioral Health Services booklet to help providers understand the laws and regulations that govern billing for behavioral health services.
  • The resource also includes a checklist to help evaluate your billing procedures and identify potential errors, as well as a resource guide for your billing staff to review current guidelines, billing and coding, covered services, and compliance information.
  • Learn ways you can enhance and streamline your billing process through Improving Your Third-Party Billing System, a self-paced online course from SAMHSA’s BHbusiness initiative.

CIHS continually updates its website to present the best and newest resources and information relevant to integrated primary and behavioral health care.

For providers that may be adding behavioral health services to a primary care practice, you’ll need to be sure you’re getting reimbursed for these new services. That means knowing what you can bill for, learning a web of new codes and numbers, identifying which staff can be reimbursed for providing these services, and training staff to code services appropriately. National Council is inviting primary care providers and their behavioral health partners to join integration experts from primary care centers for a webinar on the practical ins and outs of billing for behavioral health services, to a variety of third-party payers, including Medicare and Medicaid.

Participants need to be ready to discuss the menu of billing options available that can match your center’s needs. After this webinar, participants will:

  • Identify billing options for integrated behavioral health services;
  • Ask questions to identify if Medicaid and Medicare numbers are appropriately linked to the mental health services provided; and
  • Employ tips for working with clinical and billing staff at the same time.

This webinar will be held on Monday, June 6, at 2:00 pm. Practitioners and providers can register here.

RCPA will now distribute information on integrated health care. RCPA INFOS and ALERTS will cover research, delivery and training models, policy issues, and other topics that will inform our members (and their physical health care partners) about collaborative, integrated, and co-located health care. To subscribe to this distribution list, select this link and check “Integrated Care.” This will add to your existing email preference selections.