by Mike Lardieri, LCSW on September 10, 2024
Providers working at certified community behavioral health clinics (CCBHCs) have a range of responsibilities. This includes working to ensure affordable, high-quality healthcare is accessible to all clients with behavioral health needs.
But doing so — while also addressing the interconnectedness of each client’s physical, mental, and emotional needs — requires these providers to collaborate closely with specialists across the care continuum. As such, CCBHCs and their designated collaborating organizations (DCOs) must have the right systems and technologies in place to enable seamless care coordination as clients move from provider to provider.
Implementing technologies like an advanced electronic health record (EHR) can enable teams to more securely share data, organize treatment plans, and better engage clients in their care journeys.
The Importance of Integrated Behavioral Healthcare
According to the American Academy of Physician Associates (AAPA), adults in the United States spend about eight hours every month coordinating their own healthcare, and 65% of adults say the care coordination process is overwhelming. Due to the disjointed nature of today’s healthcare system, 44% of adults have skipped or delayed needed care altogether, the AAPA reports.
CCBHCs were designed to alleviate this burden for behavioral healthcare clients and improve the ability for anyone who needs care to get it. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) notes that care coordination is one of the core program requirements that CCBHCs must follow. More specifically, CCBHCs are expected to:
- establish partnerships with DCOs, such as inpatient psychiatric facilities, substance use detoxification centers, child placing agencies, homeless shelters, Department of Veterans Affairs facilities, and other organizations;
- share client information quickly via secure EHR systems; and
- ensure care coordination remains person- and family-centered and culturally competent.
When seamless processes are in place, the model delivers significant benefits: Coordinated CCBHC and DCO services in Missouri, for example, led to a 20% drop in hospitalization rates and a 23% increase in access to mental healthcare, notes the National Council for Mental Wellbeing.
Care Coordination Challenges With a Multi-Disciplinary Team
Achieving integrated behavioral healthcare with a multi-disciplinary team can be difficult when CCBHCs are juggling multiple DCO relationships using multiple EHR systems. Managing too many disparate systems can result in an array of difficulties:
- Trouble maintaining accurate, up-to-date client data and organized, accessible provider notes
- Sharing of updated information in a less-than-timely manner (which is particularly harmful during urgent crisis situations)
- Failure to protect sensitive client information and remain compliant with federal data privacy and security standards
These challenges impede care coordination, creating barriers to behavioral healthcare access that can increase the likelihood of error, place unnecessary cost burdens on CCBHCs, and ultimately hinder clients’ overall health and outcomes.
Best Practices for Coordinated Care
A centralized EHR can make a big difference in a CCBHC’s efforts to develop a system of care that helps clients receive timely access to support, services, and treatments. Harnessing the power of a system like Core Solutions’ Cx360 enables CCBHCs to align with DCOs and stakeholders through one collaborative source of truth, share secure client information, and communicate effectively to best serve their clients.
Here are five best practices for making the most of a centralized EHR to strengthen care coordination and outcomes.
1. Align on and share treatment plans
Sharing information and treatment plans are crucial elements of care coordination. CCBHCs and DCOs can use a solution like the Cx360 platform to communicate and securely share information via a central system.
Using the platform, you and your DCO teams can integrate care plans, review each other’s clinical notes, and discuss client needs through preferred communication methods. This communication not only fosters collaboration on care planning but also enables everyone to act quickly when urgent needs arise. For mental health crisis situations, for example, you can coordinate with psychiatric facilities via the platform to quickly identify which locations have open beds.
2. Prioritize interoperability and continuity
CCBHC and DCO providers need access to the same client data and workflows. These are critical to implementing continuous care that keeps clients on their path to the right treatment and recovery.
Consider using a solution like Cx360 to put interoperability at the forefront of your work. With the platform, anyone who cares for the client — including CCBHCs, DCOs, and personal caregivers — can monitor client progress by quickly pulling up schedules, care plans, assessments, or provider notes.
You can also create role-based permissions and protocols that enable DCOs to see only the client data that’s relevant to their continuous care, which streamlines interoperability, communication, and collaboration even further while helping meet privacy requirements.
3. Optimize workflows and performance
CCBHCs and DCOs aren’t just responsible for providing coordinated care. They must provide high-quality care and report their progress to governing organizations.
The Cx360 platform can help with both tasks. The platform’s intuitive performance dashboard allows providers across the care spectrum to see care quality, safety, and performance metrics. You can create custom filters to track quality measures, value-based payments, and improvement insights.
With this data, you and your DCOs can ensure you’re providing effective, person-centered care and make informed workflow adjustments to better serve clients and improve care coordination.
4. Leverage key functionality for providing timely care
Timely, holistic care is a core tenet of the integrated CCBHC model — and executing that care requires the right tools.
Employ an advanced, centralized EHR to get automated alerts and reminders for required screenings and assessments, better ensuring no client gets lost in the system. Solutions like the Core Clinician Assist: Anomaly Detection tool can also help you close care gaps by identifying outliers in clinical progress notes and flagging issues that can negatively impact client outcomes.
A client’s experience doesn’t end when they leave the organization — and neither should yours. By using the Cx360 platform’s bespoke workflows and secure communication methods, you can monitor referrals to DCOs to ensure clients are and remain on track. The system also follows clients’ progress, medication usage, and treatment adherence to enable all providers to close the loop on coordinated treatment plans.
5. Keep compliance top of mind
No matter the technologies you use, legal and regulatory compliance should guide your workflows. Consider using Cx360 to do the heavy lifting to meet requirements.
The platform’s Compliance Tracker organizes and monitors all compliance-related deadlines across your relationships with DCOs. You can assign tasks and responsibilities to everyone in your healthcare ecosystem and provide DCOs with access to dashboards and reports to help everyone stay current on evolving regulatory requirements.
Care Coordination With Core’s Cx360: A Comprehensive Solution
Integrated behavioral healthcare is essential for improving whole-person health and is most effective when all providers can work together seamlessly. Having the right technologies can help ensure that the coordinated CCBHC model meets their needs as well as those of their clients.
Ready to see what the Cx360 platform can do for your care coordination processes? Contact us today.
