Health insurers, employers and other stakeholders need to rally around a set of key solutions to address the crisis in behavioral health services, groups representing U.S. physicians said today.

The American Medical Association and seven other leading physician organizations have established the BHI Collaborative, a group dedicated to catalyzing effective and sustainable integration of behavioral and mental health care into physician practices.

A new call-to-action article from those physician organizations — published today in the medical journal Health Affairs — urges a unified and collective effort by stakeholders across the health care system to support equitable, whole-person care for patients and their families. Those initiatives fall under the umbrella of behavioral health integration, or BHI.

“Even with a clear recognition that our primary care systems must urgently embrace a paradigm shift to stem the growing behavioral health crisis, there remain significant challenges in building clinical pathways that provide whole person care,” said Dr. Gerald Hamon, immediate past president of the AMA and co-author of the call to action. “These challenges cannot be overcome by physicians alone, and we are calling on payers and policymakers, among other industry stakeholders, to rally around a set of key solutions in partnership with physicians.”

Up to 70% of primary care visits involve a behavioral health component, and it’s estimated that fewer than half of U.S. adults who reported a mental health condition before the pandemic received any treatment for that condition. Additionally, between 13% and 20% of U.S. children and adolescents — or approximately 15 million youths — experience a behavioral health disorder in any given year with suicide as the second leading cause of death among 10- to 24-year-olds.

With an initial focus on primary care, the collaborative is “committed to ensuring a professionally satisfying, sustainable physician practice experience and will act as a trusted partner to help them overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of meeting their patients’ mental and behavioral health needs,” according to a description on its website.  

The organizations say the “paradigm shift” is urgently needed to accelerate the adoption of BHI into physician practices.

For employers, health plans and other payers in the health care system, the call to action outlines five solutions to accelerate widespread adoption of behavioral health integration by primary care practices:

1. Expand coverage and fair payment for all stakeholders using BHI models.
2. Evaluate how and when to apply cost-sharing for integrated services (whether delivered in person or via telehealth).
3. Assist primary care practices by offering technical support, provider training and regional sharing of resources.
4. Minimize or eliminate utilization management practices for BHI services.
5. Launch whole-person, employer-based behavioral health programs with intentional culture-focused work to destigmatize behavioral health.