What is Integrative Behavioral Health Care?

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Behavioral health is an umbrella term that includes mental health and substance use conditions, life stressors and crises, stress-related physical symptoms, and health behaviors. Behavioral health conditions often affect medical illnesses.

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• Integrative behavioral health care blends care in one setting for medical conditions and related behavioral health factors that affect health and well-being. Integrative behavioral health care, a part of “whole-person care,” is a rapidly emerging shift in the practice of high-quality health care. It is a core function of the “advanced patient-centered medical home.”

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• Integrative behavioral health care is sometimes called “behavioral health integration,” “integrative care,” “collaborative care,” or “primary care behavioral health.” No matter what one calls it, the goal is the same: better care and health for the whole person.

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• Providers practicing integrative behavioral health care recognize that both medical and behavioral health factors are important parts of a person’s overall health. Medical and behavioral health clinicians work together as a team to address a patient’s concerns. Care is delivered by these integrative teams in the primary care setting and/or the community unless patients request or require specialty services. The advantage is better coordination and communication, while working toward one set of overall health goals.

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Our goal is to help patients and their families get the behavioral health treatment (mental health, substance use, co-occurring conditions) they need and deserve. This also includes collaborating with an array of providers to ensure that right patient gets the right treatment at the right time. River City’s care goes beyond mental health or psychiatric stabilization or addiction cessation, to offer patients the practical knowledge and skills, and access to the vital resources required to reintegrate back into family, work, and recreational activities successfully. We believe in the value of good nutrition, exercise, social connectivity and spiritual grounding to set the stage for lifelong recovery, whether it is from mental health and substance use conditions or both.