Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / Breaking Barriers: Enhancing Communication in Behavioral Health

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Breaking Barriers: Enhancing Communication in Behavioral Health · Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

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  Hi, everyone. This is Erica Spicer Mason with
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  the Becker's Healthcare Podcast Series. Thank you so
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  much for tuning in today. I'm thrilled to
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  be joined by a guest, Vasar Tasimi, the
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  senior vice president of provider success at Lucid.
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  Bazar, without further ado, we'd like to welcome
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  you to the podcast.
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  Really appreciate you making time for Becker's today.
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  Thank you, Erica, and thank you, Becker's. I'm
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  glad to be here.
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  We're really glad to have you. I know
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  we'll be diving into the topic of behavioral
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  health today, which is such an important one.
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  But before we do, would you like to
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  say just a little bit more about yourself,
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  your background, maybe a little bit more about
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  Lucid as well?
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  Sure. So I'm like you said, Vissar Tasimi.
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  I'm the senior vice president of provider success
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  at Lucit.
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  I've been with the company for about two
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  and a half years. Lucit is a behavioral
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  health
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  services
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  organization
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  that serves over 15,000,000
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  members across the country in a variety of
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  of different health plans and direct to employers
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  as well through our EAP business.
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  The provider success organization
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  is an organization that we
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  renamed,
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  which in other companies are typically called
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  network operations
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  or the like.
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  But we took an interesting approach here to
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  name this provider success
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  because we believe that in order for a
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  behavioral health business and many other payer services
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  businesses to be successful, we need our providers
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  to be successful. And so our mission as
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  as a department is to empower providers
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  to treat their patients and do what they
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  do best and provide them support and services
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  that they need. So, so that's what we
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  do here at Lucid from a behavioral health
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  perspective and and in particular,
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  the provider success team.
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  Great. Thank you so much for the overview,
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  Vasar. It it's great to hear how
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  your organization is, as you put it, empowering
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  providers. I think that's so important in this
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  in this current landscape where in behavioral health,
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  we're seeing
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  a really sharp rise in demand for services
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  and at the same time,
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  a critical provider shortage.
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  So in that environment, I'd love to know
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  from your perspective,
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  what communication challenges and barriers are you seeing
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  health plans deal with here, especially when it
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  comes to engaging their providers?
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  And why is addressing that so important?
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  Absolutely.
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  You know, the the behavioral health provider landscape
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  is much different than
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  the, for example, primary care landscape where so
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  much of the primary care market
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  is connected to
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  large facility systems and health systems
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  that provides
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  those primary care offices
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  a lot of administrative support
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  and, and back end functions to help them
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  run their business.
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  In the behavioral health landscape, there's still certainly
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  a lot of fragmentation
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  where there are solar practitioners and small partnerships
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  and certainly large organizations as well. But,
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  given
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  the the access challenges
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  out in the marketplace and the the real
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  need for
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  for behavioral health services, it's really important
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  to engage the whole ecosystem
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  of behavioral health providers
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  and try to empower them as best we
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  can
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  to be available for for members and and
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  take on patients and and treat them well.
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  And so the, you know, the barriers there
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  has a lot to do with technology,
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  and processes.
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  You know, providers are are not just in
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  the business of being a provider.
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  They are when they are participating with, managed
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  care plans,
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  dealing with the administrative burden of of doing
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  so. And so think about claim submissions
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  and
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  updating their their information and profiles
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  and everything that they need to do to
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  appear,
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  in a provider directory
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  accurately
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  and the like. And so what's really important
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  to the behavioral health network is is offering
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  them
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  solutions and support,
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  whether they are a a solo practitioner
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  just starting off their business
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  or part of a large organization,
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  again, empowering them
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  to to spend their time and resources on
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  treating members and and trying to minimize the
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  administrative burden on their practices.
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  And, you know, that is,
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  that is a challenge in that there's
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  a lot of work that health plans are
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  are pulled in different directions with their primary
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  care network, their network
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  of specialists, their inpatient networks.
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  You know, the behavioral health networks are are
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  certainly
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  as important,
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  but but are in a sea of of
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  work that health plans are working on. And
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  so, again, from a from a Lucid perspective,
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  you know, we specialize
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  only in behavioral health, and, this is an
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  important aspect to make sure that we are
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  trying to support these providers as best we
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  can and and embrace them
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  and their technology and processes and help bridge
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  those gaps to,
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  to make sure the providers are focusing on
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  on doing what they do best, which is
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  treating their patients.
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  Yeah. I really appreciate how you described this
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  behavioral health landscape as fragmented, so to speak.
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  And it sounds like there's a lot of
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  opportunities to kind of connect the dots, make
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  providers more visible,
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  to their networks. And yeah. So I really
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  appreciate that overview.
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  And, Vasari, you mentioned primary care
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  toward the beginning of your response, and I
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  wanted to to dive into primary care just
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  a little bit here. I know that, you
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  know, some of those initial behavioral health screenings,
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  like depression screenings, for example, those can take
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  place in a primary care setting. So can
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  you share with our audience how primary care
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  plays a role in that communication and information
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  exchange surrounding behavioral health? Maybe you could walk
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  us through an example.
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  It's a critical channel. You think about
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  a patient's journey when they may think that
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  they need behavioral health services for the first
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  time
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  in their life.
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  They may not know what the difference between
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  a therapist
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  and a psychologist and a psychiatrist is,
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  yet there's a pretty good chance that they
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  have a relationship
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  with a primary care provider that they've had
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  for potentially a long
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  time and and have the trust of that
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  PCP
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  to to know where to go when they
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  have a health issue.
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  And so,
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  the primary care channel is is critical in
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  that they are a a catcher's mitt of
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  patients who have behavioral health needs. And
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  so
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  providing resources
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  for the primary care channel
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  in
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  supporting them to to help them with
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  patients that they have, their patients who have
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  behavioral health care needs and letting them know
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  where to go and what resources are available
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  to them is is absolutely critical. And so
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  one of the examples around this, around information
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  sharing, just just on the front end of
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  referrals,
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  and then we'll get to the back end
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  around what actually happened.
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  We're working with a a primary care practice
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  in Florida
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  that,
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  is is high volume, has a lot of
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  patients they see, and and certainly a lot
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  of their patients have behavioral health care needs.
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  And
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  in the,
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  in the prior scenario,
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  it's it's really difficult for these primary care
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  physicians to to try to
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  to find somewhere to go with with those
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  patients. And so what we have done is
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  we connected
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  with that primary care practice, and we integrated
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  with their EMR. And so when they see
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  a patient that has
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  a behavioral health need,
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  that PCP knows what to do. They go
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  into their EMR. They drop down their their
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  referral
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  specialty field. And when they get to behavioral
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  health, we're we're coded in their system, Lucid,
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  as the first option. And so when they
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  click that button, they can tell their patient,
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  okay,
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  understand your needs. We're gonna get you a
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  referral. Lucid is gonna be the organization that's
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  gonna call you and help you get the
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  care that you need. And so that triggers
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  a an outreach from the Lucid team to
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  get in touch with that patient
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  and screen them and find out what their
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  care needs are, whether they actually do need
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  a therapist or a psychiatrist
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  or or another type of behavioral health care
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  need
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  and get them scheduled into an appointment. And
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  so that that primary care physician knows their
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  patient is being taken care of, going to
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  a a visit a
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  practitioner
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  that is clinically appropriate from the Haver Health
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  standpoint
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  and know that that that patient is going
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  to get seen in a reasonable amount of
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  time. On the back end of this, it's
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  also really important around information exchange that that
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  PCP also captures the information after that initial
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  appointment and ongoing, you know,
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  captures the information after that initial appointment and
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  ongoing
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  appointments happen to know that, yes, my patient
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  did go to
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  to so and so therapist or psychiatrist and
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  here's their treatment plan. And and Lucid is
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  in the middle of that,
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  those transactions
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  to to connect to the PCP
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  world and let them know, yes, your patients
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  are being taken care of and here's where
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  they're going. So,
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  you know, we do have a lot of
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  of members and patients who who can navigate
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  the system and and land themselves
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  in favor of health care services directly, but
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  there's certainly a very large role for the
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  primary care channel to play
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  around getting their patients who have behavioral health
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  needs and a solution for them as opposed
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  to a,
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  you know, the traditional method of,
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  you know, here may be a list of
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  of providers that we may know in the
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  community
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  by,
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  you know, by a discharge planner or someone
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  in the office versus
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  a full suite solution that that someone like
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  Lucid can offer.
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  Fascinating.
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  Thanks so much, Vassar. Sounds like just that
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  simple practice of integrating
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  this tool within the EHR, it's really helpful
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  for both the provider and the patient, kind
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  of streamlines that,
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  linkage to care. So appreciate you sharing a
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  little more detail about that. And I think
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  that actually
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  serves my next question serves up my next
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  question, which which is that I wanted to
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  know about any other key strategies or resources
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  that you'd recommend to health plans in order
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  to better engage behavioral health providers and improve
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  care, kind of as we talked about. I
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  know those that integrated e r EHR feature
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  is one thing, but any other resources or
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  strategies you wanted to kind of elaborate on
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  or even just a best next step leaders
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  can take to drive progress?
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  Yeah. I think the the way of the
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  world that we can connect these two systems
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  is through,
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  integrated
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  programs
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  between the the PCP or medical programs that
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  health plans
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  are engaging with their own network and their
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  behavioral health programs and making sure that these
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  are not two separate programs, that they are
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  working together.
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  And so as I mentioned a little bit
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  before
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  in the last example about the primary care
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  and how we help navigate
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  members,
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  into
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  behavioral health appointments, that that is our
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  our navigate and connect solution where we are
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  Lucid is taking the guesswork out of the
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  patient and screening them and connecting to networks
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  of providers who are connected into our technology
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  and providing their real time appointment availability
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  to
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  to offer up that that channel for the
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  patients. But again, the the key there is
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  that that is not stand alone, that that
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  is connected to
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  the the medical networks and the medical programs
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  and, you know, potentially, in some cases, the
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  care management
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  programs
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  that exist in,
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  in the health plans medical world. And so
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  making sure that these members that have higher
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  care needs are co managed by both their
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  medical programs and their behavioral health programs and
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  that there's connectivity there. Because these, again, these
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  are not exclusive in terms of a patient's
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  care
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  needs. They may be diagnosed with a, with
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  an issue with a diagnosis that that comes
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  with a behavioral health
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  burden on that patient, a new cancer diagnosis.
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  You think about someone's behavioral health care needs
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  when they just find out about a diagnosis
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  like that. And so making sure, you know,
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  again, from the traditional standpoint
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  that those patients are seeing their oncologists and
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  have a care plan forward, but they also
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  need to be assessed for behavioral health care
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  needs to make sure that they're in a
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  good place from
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  a well-being standpoint.
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  Mhmm.
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  Yeah. Connectivity really seems to be the through
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  line here,
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  in regards to ensuring patients have access to
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  behavioral health services in the first place, that
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  they are linked to them, and that,
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  those services kinda fit into a a more
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  holistic care plan. So,
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  Vasari, this has been such an educational conversation.
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  Really appreciate everything you've shared. Is there anything
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  that we didn't touch on or any final
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  thoughts that you wanted our audience to know?
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  Scott, I would just say broadly speaking, you
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  know, the the behavioral health community out there
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  of providers are are wonderful individuals that understand
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  that this is about the holistic
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  care of of members
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  and that they are connected
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  to the world and not existing just in
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  the vacuum
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  of of Vabra healthcare needs. So I'm I'm
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  so
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  privileged to work with Vabra healthcare providers
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  in the markets that that we serve and
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  the members that we serve and just love
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  seeing
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  the the innovation that is coming out of
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  these channels in terms
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  of moving forward,
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  the connectivity,
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  the integrations
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  between
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  technology systems and between
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  medical and facility systems and behavioral health care.
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  It's certainly wonderful to see that that these
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  two worlds are coming together, and I think
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  that's just gonna be the the best possible
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  outcome in treating patients. So it's it's a
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  wonderful time to be in behavioral health care,
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  and I and I love seeing where things
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  are going.
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  Visart, thank you so much again for your
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  time, for sharing your passion in this field
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  and for ending your work.
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  Appreciate you being on the podcast today. Thank
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  you again.
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  Thanks for being here. I really appreciate it,
• 14:25
  Erica.
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  And we'd also like to thank Lucid for
• 14:28
  sponsoring today's episode.
• 14:30
  Listeners, please be sure to tune into more
• 14:32
  podcasts from Becker's by visiting our podcast page
• 14:34
  at beckershospitalreview.com.