News from the CDC: Integrating Behavioral Health into the Patient-Centered Medical Home

Persons with mental illness are at higher risk of developing life-threatening physical conditions or dying prematurely [1], and several studies have reported improvements in health status when patients received integrated services. By integrating behavioral health services with primary care services, we can improve health care quality, preventive care practices, and health outcomes and reduce fragmented health care delivery for people who have mental illness or addictions and physical health problems [2, 3]. An emerging model for improving health care quality in the USA is the patient-centered medical home (PCMH). This model may provide an ideal way to integrate behavioral health and primary care services [4], particularly for persons with chronic conditions such as diabetes [5, 6] and hypertension [7, 8]. Already, some federal programs and state policies are supporting this approach as a way to integrate and improve health care services for persons with behavioral and physical health problems.