Turn Intention Into Action

As I think more and more about the impact of metabolic health on mental health, I’m reminded that care coordination is one of the most impactful parts of mental health care. Seeing CMS’ recent release of the ACCESS model, with emphasis on wearables and outcome-aligned payments tells me I’m on the right track.
Before this, and current-state, to do this well and truly decrease the total cost of care, clinicians have to spend hours every week aligning with PCPs and specialists. Most of it is unpaid, or paid very poorly, and often not even built into the EHR for billing.
And while I’m sure there are Product fixes out there for this, I haven’t seen any scaled interoperability that actually meets the goal. When the system doesn’t reimburse coordination, it disincentivizes one of the strongest levers we have for actual sustainable wellness.
If we want real value in healthcare, we need to recognize and fund the work that actually stabilizes people: coordination, communication, and continuity.
Care coordination is an essential element of quality care and it deserves to be paid for. ACCESS is an interesting push towards a good goal, but building it into a model only helps if the emphasis and scheduling flexibility reach the clinician. Contracting for it and then continuing to require 35 hours a week of 90837s isn’t going to cut it.