Making progress on integration of behavioral health care and other medical care

Integrating behavioral health into primary care has long been a goal of health policy makers throughout the health system. Primary care settings are touched by most people and offer a setting that can be less stigmatizing and easier to access than mental health settings. They also offer opportunities to address the range of health and mental health conditions that frequently travel together. More recently, attention to leveraging the supply of primary care practices to address apparent shortages of behavioral health providers in various locations and treatment settings has given still greater import to efforts to integrate behavioral health and primary care services.