Taking care of your health means more than treating physical symptoms. Today, many primary care providers (PCPs) include behavioral health care as part of your regular care. This approach, often called integrated care, is designed to better support your whole-person health.
What Is Behavioral Health?
Behavioral health refers to your mental, emotional, and social well-being. It includes common conditions like anxiety, depression, stress, and substance use. It can impact your daily life and is a critical component of your overall health.
Why Behavioral Health Is Now Part of Primary Care
More people visit their primary care provider each year than a mental health specialist. By offering behavioral health services in the same place, care becomes more accessible, convenient, and effective.
This shift to integrated care helps:
- Advance access to care by reducing wait times and barriers to mental health services
- Support whole-person health by recognizing the connection between physical and mental health
- Reduce stigma by making mental health screenings a normal part of checkups
- Improve health outcomes through early detection and treatment
- Lower overall health care costs by reducing emergency visits and hospital stays
For example, managing conditions like diabetes, chronic pain, or high blood pressure often includes addressing stress, lifestyle habits, or emotional health. Treating both together leads to better results.
How Integrated Care Works
Primary care offices often use a team-based approach to care. This means your PCP works closely with behavioral health providers as part of a team. Sometimes this includes a warm handoff, in which your doctor introduces you to a behavioral health specialist during the same visit.
This approach supports:
- Faster support and easier access for anxiety, depression, or substance use concerns
- Better coordination between providers
- Personalized care plans that address your full health needs
Connecting Coloradans to Behavioral Health Care
Rocky Mountain Health Plans is committed to expanding behavioral health access in Colorado. We deliver investments to providers and community organizations to integrate behavioral health services and supports into primary care and community settings so that Health First Colorado (Colorado’s Medicaid Program) and RMHP PRIME members can get the care and resources they need, when they need them.
