Continuum eyes collaboration on mental-health care

CLEAR MINDED: Continuum Behavioral Health Executive Director Ian Lang said that there is a need to link primary care and behavioral health “much more efficiently.” / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS
CLEAR MINDED: Continuum Behavioral Health Executive Director Ian Lang said that there is a need to link primary care and behavioral health “much more efficiently.” / PBN PHOTO/TRACY JENKINS

A behavioral health care partnership is brewing among Care New England, Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island and The Providence Center.
It involves The Providence Center establishing its first for-profit subsidiary, Continuum Behavioral Health, to be run by Executive Director Ian Lang, who recently left his job as director of marketing and communication at HealthSource RI. Details of the developing partnership are still being worked out, said Lang, who previously worked at The Providence Center before joining HealthSource RI.
Part of the impetus for the collaboration stems from the provisions for mental-health care under the Affordable Care Act that attempt to provide parity for mental and physical health on the part of insurance carriers.
“Parity gives more of a guarantee of revenue,” Lang said, “in the sense that mental health now has to be covered, as well as a way of understanding that behavioral health issues comprise a chronic disease that really needs to be treated and managed.”
Still, the full flowering of mental-health care parity remains elusive, as Lang himself pointed out. “More than 50 percent of psychiatrists don’t currently accept insurance,” he said.
Patricia Recupero, president and CEO of Butler Hospital, raised similar concerns in testimony last month to the Joint Commission to Study the Integration of Primary and Behavioral Health in Rhode Island. “Parity is a good thing but it will not help if there are no providers accepting insurance,” Recupero said.
Continuum will be a competitor of Butler Hospital for behavioral health care dollars, but at the same time Care New England, of which Recupero is executive vice president, will be one of Continuum’s partners.
The layered arrangement bespeaks the importance that behavioral health care delivery holds for the state, according to Joan Kwiatkowski, CEO of PACE Organization of Rhode Island. PACE has partnered with The Providence Center in delivering integrative behavioral health care to seniors during the past five years. Kwiatkowski said the new venture combining Care New England, Blue Cross and The Providence Center (through Continuum) is above all, about meeting patient needs. “I think this collaboration allows each party to put forward the best contribution they can make to this situation,” Kwiatkowski said. “They’re bringing those strengths to the table to help the client. That’s somewhat unique, because organizations will get into somewhat of a protective stance, and say, ‘I bring insurance expertise,’ or ‘I bring care expertise.’ If Care New England does have competitive interests in this, then it’s even that much more remarkable. They’re saying, ‘This is bigger than us.’ ”
Care New England last week declined to discuss the developing partnership. Blue Cross could not be immediately reached for comment.
Lang said the partnership is a recognition “there needs to be a new way of doing business.
“I think that we share a commitment to attempting … to find a more durable and strong behavioral health care delivery system,” he said. “We have a common goal there.”
As for Continuum itself, it will be a network of outpatient facilities, the first in Providence (already up and running on the East Side), and the second in Cranston. The business, Lang said, will “take the lessons learned from integrated and coordinated care for people and take that to a commercially insured population.”
Lang was quick to point out that he would be building on the work of many at The Providence Center. “That’s what is so exciting about coming back here where so much good work has already been done,” he said. “There are a lot of people who have expended a great deal of sweat-equity here and made great strides. But I feel really that we’re trying to offer better care, higher-quality care, in a cost-effective manner.” Recupero and others in the field have argued that providers need to be coordinating their services better for those suffering from mental illness. It’s not enough for substance-abuse counselors, mental-health clinicians and support staff to be in one location, she says. New forms of communication and treatment verification have to be put in place.
“There is a need to link primary care and behavioral health much more efficiently,” Lang said, “just as there has been a growing conversation around the fact that primary care is so important as a care coordinator.”
Lang emphasized that Continuum’s business model is still “in the very early stages,” but he said the business’ philosophy has been well-honed.
“What I think we will offer is the ability to move throughout the continuum of services,” he said, “so depending where you are on your level of need at that particular time we will be able to meet those needs.”
Lang, who holds an MBA from the University of Rhode Island, says businesses’ bottom lines typically improve when they address their employees’ behavioral health needs.
“Absenteeism, lost productivity, and high health care costs are some of the ways that addiction proves expensive for businesses,” he said. “If we provide the right care at the right place at the right time, I think that is inevitably going to have a profound effect on the bottom line of businesses.” •

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