Operational and clinical components for integrated-collaborative behavioral healthcare in the patient-centered medical home

Behavioral healthcare will be an essential piece of meeting the patient-centered medical home (PCMH) principles of easy access and whole person, coordinated, and integrated care as primary care clinics transform themselves into PCMHs. As this transformation occurs, PCMH clinic staff and behavioral health providers must carefully consider how to adapt their operations to include the provision of integrated-collaborative behavioral health services within the PCMH. Without this careful consideration, integrated-collaborative behavioral healthcare will likely fail to reach its full potential. We discuss the operational and clinical components that appear to be important for success when integrating behavioral healthcare into the PCMH.