Fixing the Growing Payer-Provider Divide in Behavioral Health

Behavioral health’s odd-duck status requires a unique approach to the payer-provider dynamic. Historic challenges have demonstrated that payer-provider negotiations and partnerships require an approach fundamentally different from other types of business, even other health care segments. Often, involved parties need to alter their expectations to reflect reality instead of a vision of the future. For […]

Beyond Trial-and-Error: How Precision Psychiatry Is Revolutionizing Mental Health Care

Behavioral health providers are hungry for meaningful innovations in treatment modalities. A cutting-edge technique known as precision psychiatry could be an answer to fostering more timely and improved outcomes, experts told Behavioral Health Business. This practice, an application of the more general term precision medicine, requires significant data and technology investments, however, which could hamper […]

Medicaid, Elevated Behavioral Health Utilization Had Payers Talking in Q3

The ongoing need for behavioral health services will be no surprise to anyone involved in the industry. Patients continue to have high rates of need and often present with greater acuity. This demand for behavioral health services was reflected across payers’ Q3 earnings calls. The result? Sky-high utilization levels. For example, David Cordani, the CEO […]

[Updated] Who Does the Accrediting? New Autism Therapy Regulation Highlights Big Question for the Industry

Last month, Massachusetts became the first state to require applied behavioral analysis (ABA) providers to become accredited. The Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services adopted the new rule in October after the Massachusetts attorney general and inspector general questioned the level of quality control at ABA clinics in the past year. Providers who […]

Earnings Season Proved Behavioral Health Is Under the Spotlight and the Microscope

The coronavirus pandemic and massive influx of capital into the industry over the past five years have put the behavioral health industry centerstage in the proverbial play that is American health care. But the spotlight eventually attracts the microscope. The industry has and will continue to face greater scrutiny, examination, criticism and challenges than ever […]

Going Nuclear: In Suing NIMBY Cities, Behavioral Health Providers Face Major Dilemma

Earlier this year, the city commission of Stuart, Florida, said “no” to a zoning variance requested by Behavioral Health Centers LLC, which sought to repurpose an existing building into a mental health and substance use disorder (SUD) center. The commission, and residents of the Florida Treasure Coast town, feared that the clinic’s patients would cause […]

Holistic Autism Care Models Demonstrate Industry’s Best-Case Scenario

The autism therapy industry’s advancement toward holistic autism care models embodies a powerful through line in the collective story of behavioral health. That through line, in part and in brief, is the fact that behavioral health must do more and be more than it ever has before. The need and opportunity for the industry to […]

Build, Lease or Buy: Behavioral Health Providers Debate Best AI Strategies

Behavioral health providers are increasingly using artificial intelligence (AI) to improve efficiency, personalize treatment pathways and produce outcomes. How best to develop an AI-enabled technology stack remains unclear, however. While leasing AI technology from vendors is a relatively easy path to keep up with the digital Joneses, providers with more specialized needs or those looking […]

How Magellan Health Selects Behavioral Health Partners: A Conversation with Magellan Health President of Behavioral Health Dr. Caroline Carney

Behavioral health stands apart from other health care specialties, for one, because of a lack of standardized outcome measurements. Without these markers, health plans must evaluate potential provider partnerships through a different lens, developing alternative criteria to ensure high-quality treatment for members and cost savings for the health plans. In this BHB+ TALKS conversation, reporter […]