Collaborative Care: How evolvedMD is Tackling America’s Mental Health Crisis

By Sarah Hanchett, Chief Clinical Officer of Collaborative Care

Imagine a man named Isaac who struggles with moderate depression and diabetes.

He’s been trying to get help for months, but every time he calls a therapist, he’s told they aren’t accepting new patients. Some don’t even take his insurance, and paying out of pocket will cost more than $150 per session. His depression is taking a toll on his relationships, his once thriving business, and his diabetes.

But there is hope.

Healthcare leaders in primary care and mental health have united to support Isaac and millions like him. We at evolvedMD are leading the way.

The Bowman Family Foundation’s Latest Report is Eye-Opening

In 2022 over 60 million adults reported dealing with a mental illness. Nearly half didn’t receive treatment at all. And more than half who did got it from their primary care doctor.

Primary care clearly lives up to being the “front door” to healthcare, but there are challenges:

• Doctors lack resources, funding, and expertise to treat mental health conditions.
• Only 13% of patients diagnosed with mental health conditions receive “minimally adequate treatment.”
• Patients with physical and mental health conditions incur three-to-six times higher annual healthcare costs.
• Overall, this leads to worse patient outcomes.

Doctors and their staff aren’t at fault; we know they’d do anything to meet their patients’ needs. They’re just simply not equipped to do it alone.

And if we don’t intervene, people like Isaac will continue to suffer.

The Solution: Collaborative Care

Collaborative Care is the most effective way to increase access to affordable, high-quality mental health care for patients like Isaac.

According to the Bowman Family Foundation, Collaborative Care offers many benefits:

• Improved Outcomes
  • Positively increases patient and provider satisfaction.
  • Improves clinical outcomes (based on 90 randomized controlled trials).
• Reduced Costs
  • Significantly reduces healthcare costs to patients and payers. Savings range from $29 per patient per month to $3,363 per patient over four years.

The Evidence is Clear and Compelling. What Now?

The Bowman Family Foundation presents a handful of recommendations to accelerate Collaborative Care adoption nationwide. Chief among them involve partnering with private vendors that specialize in Collaborative Care.

Enter evolvedMD

While we’re not mentioned in the above snippet, evolvedMD stands apart from its competitors for several key reasons:

In-Person
While modern healthcare increasingly relies on virtual services, research shows that over 70% of patients prefer in-person visits. Aligned with medical research, evolvedMD is the only Collaborative Care provider that strongly advocates for an in-person approach.

Embedding our licensed therapists in doctor’s offices enhances communication, improves continuity of care, and delivers comprehensive services, leading to improved patient outcomes. In fact, our approach achieves remission of depression over 10x faster than traditional care.

People First
Our approach thoughtfully considers not just the patients we serve but also doctors, primary care staff, and our mental health therapists, too.

Why? The American Medical Association discovered that healthcare workers had up to three times the risk of burning out. Burnout leads to chronic fatigue, job dissatisfaction, and mental health concerns. It’s not good for doctors and therapists, and therefore not good for patients.

Our approach to Collaborative Care emphasizes deep collaboration, in-house administrative support, and self-care. When frontline healthcare professionals feel supported and cared for, they deliver exceptional care and patients enjoy improved outcomes--faster. It’s a win-win.

Impactful Partnerships
One of evolvedMD’s values is “We Connect and Collaborate.” This rings true for both our team and our growing roster of partners championing Collaborative Care.

We don’t just partner with some of the nation’s largest primary care systems; we also partner with healthcare tech leaders like NeuroFlow (see in above snippet.). The market leader in technology-powered behavioral health integration, we leverage NeuroFlow’s proprietary patient registry and mobile technology to enrich collaboration, reduce clinical burden, and drive improved patient outcomes.

Advocacy
Advocacy groups, charity foundations, and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services continue to invest significant time and money into expanding access to lifesaving services.

Unfortunately, evolvedMD’s home state of Arizona is behind. Ranking 49^th in the nation according to Mental Health America, we’re experiencing higher prevalence of mental illness and lower access to treatment than ever before.

What’s worse, the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) Administration, our state’s Medicaid agency, introduced rate reductions for Collaborative Care in October 2023. This reduction has made providing lifesaving services to Medicaid patients nearly impossible, meaning the most vulnerable will not have access to care.

So, we penned a letter to Director Carmen Heredia to reverse the decision, with more to come in our other markets – starting with Utah.

Next Steps

From our clinical teams to executive leadership to admin support, we’ve lived in the shoes of those we serve. We hear people’s struggles, frustrations, and desperation for a solution that meets them where they are.

That’s why we will continue to innovate and advocate for what’s right. Our desire to disrupt has helped us serve 30,000 unique patients and increase access to care for millions more across the Southwest—with more to come. It’s what Americans deserve, and the nation’s top healthcare leaders are taking notice.

If you’re a primary care leader who wants to do right for patients like Isaac, partner with evolvedMD today.

If you are a patient seeking services, please check our website for our partners in the Southwest and if you don’t see your primary care provider listed, please send them this blog and have them call us.