Integrated Behavioral Health (IBH) Committee Looks at State Policy and IBH Practice Competencies

The RI Office of Health Commissioner, as part of the 2019 Transformation Plan, has created a task force to examine obstacles to implementing integrated behavioral health (IBH) in primary care with the intent of developing recommendations to help inform state policy decisions. 

The CTC-RI IBH Committee asked Interim Massachusetts Health Policy Director Catherine Harrison to present on IBH integration efforts in MA, a state that has been a leader in setting clinical practice, policy and payment standards to implement IBH in primary care. While MA originally worked with NCQA to establish their own state IBH competencies, MA recently decided to retire these standards and use the NCQA Behavioral Health Distinction Standards and Competencies. The CTC-RI Committee's second presentation was by Nelly Burdette Psy.D, CTC-RI Senior IBH Program Leader and Denise Andrade MBA, FACMPE, Providence Community Health Center, who spoke on their work with obtaining NCQA Behavioral Health Distinction. CTC-RI will be hosting a webinar on NCQA Behavioral Health Distinction on July 24, 2019 from 12-1pm for those who would like to learn more about applying to NCQA Behavioral Health Distinction. For more information, contact ckarner@ctc-ri.org.