What is PCMHI?
Primary Care Mental Health Integration (PCMHI) is a team-based approach to caring for your physical, mental, and emotional health needs in primary care clinics. A team of behavioral health experts works closely with you and your primary care team to come up with a plan to reach your goals that will work for you. They focus on the issues that most concern you, and on practical strategies that make it possible for you to live your day-to-day life the way you want to.
PCMHI services typically include therapy, medication management, care management, and educational classes for mild to moderate issues including:
- depression, anxiety, irritability, anger, grief, and loss
- coping with life stress
- sleep problems
- managing medical conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, chronic pain, and weight problems
- changing health behaviors such as eating and exercise habits, smoking, drinking, and drug use
Why PCMHI?
PCMHI is the best approach to care for a lot of the issues that may concern you. Research shows that PCMHI allows more people to get care for their behavioral health concerns, to get that care in a timely way and in a familiar place, and to get it in a way that makes it part of their routine health care.
PCMHI teams are multidisciplinary, and typically include professionals like psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, counselors, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and/or registered nurses who work closely together, who communicate with the primary care team in real time, and who have a wide range of knowledge, skills, and experience.
PCMHI visits are brief (30 minutes or less) and short term, so it’s easier to fit them into your schedule. Visits are usually available either in person or by telehealth to make appointments easier for you.
You can often be seen for an initial visit on the same day as your visit with your primary care provider, so there’s no need to go to another location to be seen, and no need to wait for an appointment to get started working on the issues that concern you. Follow-up visits are usually available within two to three weeks.
Talk with your primary care team to find out if PCMHI services (sometimes known by other names such as Primary Care Behavioral Health or Integrated Behavioral Health) are available to you. Your team knows that it can be really hard to talk about the things that concern you, and even harder to ask people for support. They’ll figure out if PCMHI is the right fit for you, and they’ll refer you for other services if they would be a better fit for your needs.