The CCO’s goal was to reduce the number of “million-dollar babies born to drug-using women with mental health issues,” said Shelly Uhrig of Options for Southern Oregon.
Now the CCO will sustain that financing – and start screening earlier at well-woman visits. “Waiting until a woman is pregnant is too late,” Johnstun told the 2015 CCO Summit.
Josephine County has a 58 percent rate of unintended pregnancies, higher than the national average. Now all women – not just the Medicaid population -- receive screening and care.
Since 2012 when Mosaic Medical and Deschutes County got federal approval to co-locate primary care in mental health facilities, hospitalizations for the serious mentally ill declined by 41 percent with ER visits dropping by 20 percent reduction. And more people showed up for primary care appointments, a jump of 83 percent,
“We need to not be afraid of the regulatory issues “around non-disclosure of addiction, said Lynnea Lindsey-Pengelly with Trillium Community Health Plan. As long as providers are “mindful of not putting large narratives into documentation,” communication between primary care and behavioral health works well.
“We continue the stigma of mental health being shameful when we don’t talk about it openly,” Lindsey-Pengelly said.
When insurers ask behavioral health providers about their outcomes, Dr. James Phelps of Samaritan Health Service said, “Nobody asks cardiologists to show the outcomes.”
Jan can be reached at [email protected].
