Integrated behavioral health (IBH) is an evidence-based model of care to ensure individuals have increased access to behavioral health screening, assessment, and treatment. In 2017, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released the Psychiatric Collaborative Care Management (CoMC) billing codes to support the growth of IBH. CMS also released CoCM G-codes for federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) to bill for behavioral health integration.
Although CMS released the CoM codes almost three years ago, the uptake and use of these codes is slow, and the extent to which the codes are used is unknown. In order to better understand the codes, this study aims to identify the adoption and use of Psychiatric CoCM codes in FQHCs across multiple states.
Findings
Findings from this study suggest FQHCs are working hard to meet the needs of the communities they serve, including addressing BH conditions in the context of areas that have significant shortages of BH treatment and high psychosocial needs. All FQHC administrators acknowledged the need for BH integration and the value of the model to improve care. However, because of the conflicting demands of providing care in underserved communities to safety net populations (including addressing the Covid-19 pandemic), many clinics have difficulty shifting time and resources to set up workflows, staffing patterns, and payment systems to properly support CoCM/BHI billing.
