An Innovative Model for Integrated Care
In 2015, the Colorado Behavioral Healthcare Council (CBHC) began a partnership with the Colorado State Innovation Model (SIM) office to facilitate and manage the Bi-Directional Integration Demonstration and Practice-Based Research Pilot Program, a key component of Colorado's SIM plan designed to integrate primary care and prevention services into the community behavioral health setting. Colorado's community mental health centers (CMHCs) believe in treating the whole person, and as such, four of these centers were selected to begin piloting models of bi-directional integrated care. These programs, which concluded in July of 2019, have shown that offering a full array of health care under one roof can change the course of an individual's overall wellbeing for the better.
The goals for this model align with the entirety of the SIM program:
"to improve the health of Coloradans by increasing access to integrated physical and behavioral healthcare services in coordinated community systems, with value-based payment structures, for 80 percent of state residents by 2019."