How do I become a behavioral health practitioner?
10 answers found
All mental health clinicians should become experienced and skilled in the core psychotherapy approaches to treating substance use disorders, including motivational enhancement therapy, relapse prevention (cognitive-behavioral therapy), and 12-step facilitation.
Embedding a psychologist in a primary care clinic leads to increased access to behavioral health services, especially among patients who may not seek out these services themselves or follow through with a physician’s referral to an outside behavioral health clinic.
INTRODUCTION
There are benefits of integrating a behavioral health specialist in primary care; however, little is known about the physicians' perspectives.
Results suggest that the Behavioral Health Integration Program model of pediatric integrated care is feasible and that hiring behavioral health staff with specific training in pediatric, evidence-informed behavioral health treatments may be a critical variable in increasing outcomes such as referral rates, self-reported competency, and satisfaction.
Ideal training environments will include primary care ambulatory sites that encourage residents to work longitudinally in partnership with general pediatricians and behavioral and mental health trainees and providers; behavioral and mental health training must be integrated into both ambulatory and inpatient experiences.
These results provide further support for integrating behavioral health services into pediatric primary care settings, thus allowing physicians to refer more difficult patients with behavioral issues to in-house collaborating behavioral health providers who can spend additional time necessary to address the behavioral health issue and who are licensed to receive mental health reimbursement.
In an internal survey of 33 medical providers in an integrated family medicine residency, 97% of respondents report they value behavioral health integration to such a degree that they are more likely to accept a job in a setting that offers integrated behavioral health.
Additional behavioral health professionals are needed in racial/ethnic minority neighborhoods and rural areas to provide access to behavioral health services, and to progress toward more integrated primary care.
To attain these goals, it is essential to integrate behavioral health services into the patient-centered medical home, because behavioral health problems often first present in the primary care setting, and they significantly affect physical health.
An intensive training program for behavioral health professionals increased tobacco treatment and patient quit attempts.
