Integrating Behavioral Health Into Primary Care: Overcoming Challenges in Practice and Payment
July 23, 2025
Primary care delivers nearly half of all mental health care in the U.S. amid growing patient demand and limited access to specialists. Integrated behavioral health models, where primary care clinicians coordinate directly with behavioral health specialists to provide wholistic care to a patient, can streamline mental health treatment and improve patient outcomes but present many resource and financial challenges. Is it worth the investment?
Access to mental and behavioral health care is a growing problem that no one can solve alone. That’s why on July 23, 2025, MHI Community Connections united clinicians, purchasers, health systems, and other community leaders in St. Louis to learn together and discuss integrating behavioral health into primary care:
Supporting Primary Care Practices with Integrated Behavioral Health
Joseph Eckelkamp, MD, a family medicine physician and Medical Director at SSM Health, underscored the importance of addressing mental and behavioral health conditions in primary care clinics, then shared how SSM Health is approaching integrated care.
Implementation Challenges and Strategies
Dawn Prentice, LCSW, Director of Clinical Operations at the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute, identified key strategies to ensure smooth transition and operational effectiveness of integrated behavioral health models.
Building the Business Case for Integrated Behavioral Health
How does a health system overcome financial hurdles to build and scale an integrated behavioral model? Patty Morrow (Right), Thomas Horn, and Tracy Riordan (Left) illuminated Mercy's journey to create a sustainable, system-wide collaborative care model to address behavioral health.
Pitch Perfect
Participants put their heads together to solve operational and financial challenges related to implementing an integrated health model, then put their ideas to the test in front of a panel of judges – shark tank style!
Sponsors of Community Connections
This Community Connections event and its invaluable discourse would not be possible without generous support from MHI's event sponsors:
Register for MHI's next Community Connections here, or find out more ways to get involved by reaching out to Justin Powless at jpowless@gatewaybhc.org.