Integration of Mental Health into a Mobile Pediatric Program designated as a Health Care Home

Access to behavioral health care continues to be a significant problem for uninsured and underinsured individuals. Reasons for lack of access to mental health services vary from large scale issues such as insufficient providers in a community, lack of reimbursement from public and private insurance programs, and societal stigma to more individual and specific barriers such as lack of transportation, inability to pay, or lack of awareness that services are available. In an effort to reduce disparities, many clinics are beginning to take steps to integrate behavioral health services into primary care. This presentation will examine and discuss how one program used mobile clinics to provide increased access to integrated primary pediatric and mental health care. This program has been recognized as a Level 1 Patient-Centered Medical Home by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA). We will illustrate how this mobile clinic functions as a health care home. In this program, integration of primary care and mental health services was achieved through methods including co-location of medical and mental health clinics, implementation of behavioral health screenings in the primary care clinic, maternal depression screenings with mothers of young children, care coordination, provision of EKG and blood work on the pediatric clinic for psychiatric patients for whom medication may be prescribed, and collaboration between pediatrician and mental health professional for nutrition and weight management issues. Each method will be discussed as well as how the mobile clinic model of care increases access to services in general.