Community Connections Convenes on Integrated Behavioral Health

Local Organizations Mercy, SSM Health, and St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute showcase innovative work to advance behavioral health care in St. Louis and beyond

MHI hosted its third Community Connections forum on July 23, 2025, engaging St. Louis’ primary care physicians, health care purchasers, and health system leaders around issues on Integrated Behavioral Health. Titled Integrating Behavioral Health Into Primary Care: Overcoming Challenges in Practice & Payment, the latest iteration of MHI’s multistakeholder series focused on addressing mental and behavioral health in the primary care setting through patient care models that blend behavioral health specialists with primary care clinics. The event featured local speakers from Mercy, SSM Health, and St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute (SLBMI), and concluded with a team-based problem-solving competition that simulated real-world challenges related to implementing integrated behavioral health models.  

What is Integrated Behavioral Health?

Integrated behavioral health refers to health care delivered by primary care and behavioral health clinicians working as a team to wholistically address the physical, mental, and behavioral factors affecting a patient’s health. Integrated behavioral health can take many different forms and names but consistently revolves around one central theme: mental and physical health are inherently connected and should be approached concurrently when administering health care to a patient. 

Why It Matters

The wholistic, team-based approach of integrated behavioral health care allows for easier, more streamlined access to mental health treatment, which can lead to improved health outcomes and increased patient satisfaction, as well as time and cost savings. Integrated behavioral health models have been endorsed by experts and societies such as the American Academy of Family Physicians for years, but adoption has been slow and inconsistent, in part due to high operational and financial costs coupled with limited reimbursement options. As the U.S. grapples with a growing mental health crisis exacerbated by a shortage of mental health specialists, integrating behavioral health into primary care clinics is critical to expand access to care.

Community Connections: A Multistakeholder Conversation

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 united clinicians, purchasers, health systems, and other community leaders to learn together and discuss how to advance integrated care in St. Louis. Attendees representing nearly 30 different organizations in and around the metro area listened to experts and contributed to the conversation. Highlights included:

• Joseph Eckelkamp, MD, a family medicine physician and Medical Director at SSM Health, combined statistics and personal experience to underscore the importance of addressing mental and behavioral health in primary care clinics. He shared SSM Health’s approach to integrated care, which involves a comprehensive team of licensed counselors and psychiatrists that primary care physicians can consult and direct patients to, and two Behavioral Health Urgent Care clinics designed specifically for emergency situations.

• Dawn Prentice, LCSW, Director of Clinical Operations at the St. Louis Behavioral Medicine Institute (SLBMI), identified steps systems and clinics can take to ensure a smooth transition to integrated care. As a primary care behavioral health consultant with SLBMI, Ms. Prentice has years of experience helping clinics across Missouri make the leap to integrated behavioral health models. For the Community Connections audience, she outlined best practices to overcome common infrastructural, operational, and practice-level challenges to implementing integrated care models.

• A panel of clinician leaders from Mercy – Patty Morrow, LPC; Thomas Horn, DO; Tracy Riordan, MD – illuminated how the large health system was able to build a system-wide collaborative care management (CoCM) program from the ground up. Mercy recognized the importance of creating access to behavioral health though primary care but encountered challenges with staffing and reimbursement. Faced with a shortage of available clinicians, Mercy formed a strategic partnership with a virtual behavioral health provider to accelerate the development of their program. The system also developed partnerships with government agencies and state medical associations to advocate for reimbursement based on mutual value. Mercy has since scaled CoCM across all clinics, spanning 4 states, and has achieved financial self-sustainability.

• Community Connections concluded with a team-based competition where attendees put their heads together to solve simulated challenges related to implementing an integrated health model, then presented their ideas to a panel of judges. Each team received a prompt scenario designed to mimic a real-life operational or financial problem, such as managing staffing for integrated care practices or justifying long-term investments. A panel of judges and the audience then voted on the most compelling pitches.

This event was part of MHI’s larger Community Connections series designed for the region’s health care stakeholders to build relationships and exchange perspectives, while amplifying the voice of primary care clinicians to community leaders. Each event focuses on a timely topic where attendees learn from experts and engage in discourse around challenges facing primary care and health care in St. Louis. Community Connections reconvenes December 10, 2025. To learn more and get involved, please visit MHI’s Community Connections website or email Justin Powless at jpowless@gatewaybhc.org.

Event Sponsors

This Community Connections event and its invaluable discourse would not be possible without generous support from MHI's event sponsors:

MHI is proud of its community partners and grateful for their support of MHI’s mission to improve health care value. To inquire about sponsorship opportunities for future Community Connections events, please contact Justin Powless at jpowless@gatewaybhc.org.