How Do Behavior Health Screenings Impact Real People?

Mar 25, 2021 at 01:55 am by pj


By CHRISTI CAMPBELL

 A short time ago, I had never even heard of a behavioral health screening.  A close friend of mine was an NP in partnership with another provider. I watched her struggling to stay afloat and maintain her independence as a practitioner. She eventually gave up her clinic and joined a hospital group but, in doing so, felt that she lost the ability to provide the personal touch that had caused her to want to be a doctor in the first place. Meeting quotas and working under time constraints was painful and demotivating. When we made the decision to join a health and wellness services company in 2017, we saw it as an opportunity to help physicians like my friend serve their patients and facilitate the best path to wellness while serving the physician by creating a business model that ensures the best care for patients, streamlines the work environment for staff, and allows the doctor to retire well.

 

Over the last few years, I began to work with several of our providers using an electronic platform to streamline the collection of various behavioral screenings. Believe it or not, my involvement began with interest from an eye doctor. This doctor/entrepreneur is always looking for ways to offer better patient care and supplement the, often low, payments received from patients with eye care plans. We implemented behavioral screenings at his practice and he quickly found that about one out of every fifty to sixty patients screened was struggling with depression and anxiety to the point that it required him to refer them to their PCP or a licensed counselor. While he was excited about the revenue the screenings were producing, helping his patients turned into a passion. A 15-year-old boy, sinking in the darkness of depression, unbeknownst to his parents or a 55-year-old man whose wife had left will forever be thankful for the care he provided at their optometrist visit.

 

Of course, behavioral screenings are a natural fit in a primary care or internal medicine setting, but we have also seen great success with OB/GYNs, Pediatricians, Sleep Clinics and Pain Clinics.  Because the COVID pandemic has caused such isolation and fear, patients need to be asked these questions by their providers. With over 22 screenings available, we can customize the screenings to your patient population. Screenings can be used to obtain patient medical history and provide a tangible method to meet your quality measures and to increase your MACRA/MIPS/HEDIS scoring. Ask us how we can help with your Medicare Annual Well Visits and Electronic Health Assessments, too.

 

Behavioral Health Screenings meet the nation’s mental health and opioid abuse crisis with a “front line” approach to early diagnosis and effective treatment for patients of all ages. 

 

RX2Live is a Health and Wellness Services Company positioned to advance healthcare through the BHS platform.  We have been able to help our physicians open better paths of communication with their patients, limit hospital readmissions, diagnose and treat conditions that otherwise might have gone unnoticed and create an environment where the practice or facility can thrive and realize additional growth.  We are passionate about providing our physicians with tools that better their patient outcomes and infuse the joy back into practicing medicine.

Visit RX2Live or email John Fogarty at RX2Live locally at Jfogarty@RX2Live.com

 

Before joining her husband as a regional developer for RX2Live Tennessee and Northern Georgia, Christi Campbell successfully worked as a special education teacher, mother, and wife. Since joining RX2Live, she has worked tirelessly to improve patient outcomes, increase practice revenues, and reduce overall Medicare costs. She specializes in helping practices setup and runs Behavior Health Screening programs.

She can be reached at ccampbell@rx2live.com