Expanding Access to Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Purposeful and Effective Model for Integration

Integrated behavioral health (IBH) in primary care is growing as an approach to decrease barriers and provide earlier intervention for youth experiencing behavioral and mental health symptoms. However, increasing access to mental health providers alone without ensuring evidence-based treatment (EBT) is provided will not sufficiently address the current mental health crisis. To spread to scale, IBH needs to be implemented and tested in community-based practices with integrity to EBT. This paper provides a model for implementing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) in community pediatric primary care via master’s prepared therapists through an academic-community partnership. This paper describes the hiring practices, training in CBT, ongoing supervision and consultation, and use of data to inform the evolution of the model. Using a retrospective review of the rate of emergency department (ED) admissions per 1,000 patients with a diagnosis of depression, we compared practices enrolled in our academic-community partnership IBH model to practices who implemented their own IBH and practices with no IBH. Across a four-year period, we found that practices enrolled in the academic-community partnership IBH model had a lower number of patients per 1,000 patients with a diagnosis of depression admitted to the ED with behavioral health concerns compared to practices that did not incorporate an IBH therapist. There was no difference in ED admission rates per 1,000 between practices that hired their own IBH and those without IBH. Analysis of costs of the program against generated revenue from billed services demonstrated that the academic-community partnership model shows promise of sustainability.