Integrated Behavioral Care Services

Integrated Behavioral Care: Enhancing Your Wellbeing, Together

Northern Light Health’s integrated behavioral care program leverages a convenient and innovative approach, delivering comprehensive behavioral health services right at your primary care provider’s office.

The program is built around you. By combining the expertise of a dedicated team of behavioral health specialists with your primary healthcare team, we can make your care more convenient while also supporting your overall wellbeing.

Through integrated behavioral care, you can access convenient psychiatric care while also improving your continuity of care. By collaborating with our behavioral care team, our primary care providers gain on-site, easily accessible experts to support their work and deliver care tailored to your needs.

Our approach is centered on treating you – our patient -- as the unique individual you are. We work collaboratively to empower you with the knowledge, tools, and support you need to lead a healthy, fulfilling life, and ultimately achieve your goals.

Simplifying Your Behavioral Health Journey: Access to a Team of Experts

We recognize that navigating the complexities of healthcare can seem overwhelming. That’s why our integrated behavioral care program is designed to simplify the experience for you.

Members of our integrated behavioral care team include behavioral therapists, psychiatric providers, psychiatric medication management experts, and support specialists. These specialists are here to help you navigate through challenging life situations, such as managing chronic conditions, persistent stress, or harmful habits. Some of the people you’ll meet include:

• An integrated therapist (a licensed social worker or LSW) who can help you work through a particular problem you’re facing. After talking with you, the therapist will help you develop a plan. The therapist may also help you develop tactics to alleviate stress, mitigate pain, manage symptoms, or work through problems at home or school.
• An integrated psychiatric provider (a professional mental health – nurse practitioner or PMH-NP) can help if you and your primary care provider have questions about a diagnosis, treatment, medications, or other issues affecting your life at work, home, or school.
• A care coordinator is a social worker (LSW) or registered nurse (RN) who coordinates your healthcare team and connects you to resources in your community that can help you achieve and maintain mental and physical wellbeing.

Trauma-Informed Care and Substance Use Disorders: Whole Team, Whole Patient, Whole Community

We recognize the significance of trauma in shaping one's well-being. Our integrated behavioral care program emphasizes trauma-informed care, ensuring that our team is sensitive to past traumas and works to create a safe and supportive environment for healing and growth.

We believe that trauma-informed care training for primary care providers and their clinical staff is an essential public health strategy. We understand how to use the principles of trauma-informed care to improve care for people affected by substance use disorders (SUD). Although a recognized health condition, SUDs are highly stigmatized in healthcare, which contributes to inequitable access and impacts patient outcomes.

We provide operational support and training to ensure your healthcare team seamlessly incorporates behavioral health consultations and interventions into your care plan, making the most of your healthcare experience.

Patient-Centered Approach: Workflow to Support Core Principles

Our team designed the workflow to seamlessly support the core principles of collaborative care, where you and your healthcare team work together to achieve your health and wellness objectives.

One of the benefits of our approach is that we can find gaps in your care and help you make connections with community resources. By us being integrated with your existing health care team at your primary care providers office, we can perform “warm hand-offs” and “hallway consultations,” which otherwise require referrals and can cause delays in care.

Examples of how our approach benefits you include:

• Functional assessments and goal-oriented, measurable therapeutic interventions
• Psychiatric medication management
• Clear documentation in an integrated electronic health record.

At Northern Light Health, we embrace a "people people" philosophy, seeing beyond medical charts to understand you as the unique individual you are. Our compassionate providers take the time to get to know you — your aspirations, challenges, and dreams. This enables us to work collaboratively with you to craft personalized behavioral health solutions that address your specific needs, fostering a strong patient-provider partnership.

Benefits of Integrated Behavioral Health in Primary Care Practices

By integrating behavioral health within primary care practices, we can holistically address your health needs. Our team collaborates to better assist you in improving habits, managing chronic conditions, and reducing harmful behaviors. Together, we tackle issues ranging from pain management to stress reduction, fostering a more balanced and healthier lifestyle. Your Primary Care Provider’s office benefits from having an Integrated Behavioral Care Program from the following examples:

• Increased support for managing the changing needs of complex patients.
• Address barriers to care such as stigma and fragmented services.
• Improve productivity of providers and the comprehensive health of patients.
• Reduce unnecessary use of emergency medical services.
• Implement evidence-based screening tools to identify high risk populations.
• Incorporate behavioral health documentation and easy to follow treatment plans.
• Meet criteria for health home and other managed care delivery models.

Through our integrated behavioral care program, we firmly believe in the power of teamwork, open communication, and mutual trust. Our evidence-based model of collaborative care places you at the center of your healthcare journey, ensuring you receive personalized and compassionate support in achieving your health goals.

As you embark on your behavioral health journey with us, you can rest assured that our integrated care approach is designed to support you at every step. Your well-being is at the heart of all we do, and together, we'll navigate the path to better mental and emotional health, empowering Maine's well-being, one individual at a time.

Integrated Behavioral Care Locations in Maine

Behavioral care services are integrated at most Northern Light Primary Care practices. Our integrated behavioral health program adapts an evidence-based model of collaborative care to serve the population of each individual practice, provider, and patient most effectively. As integrated providers, we are guided by principles of team-based care that include shared goals, clear roles, mutual trust, and effective communication. Our model is consultative and supports primary care and other medical providers to provide comprehensive, whole patient care within their practices.