Contributor: Building an Integrative Future for Mental Health Care

Individuals often find themselves navigating a confusing maze when trying to seek mental health services for either themselves or their child—efforts that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The provider burnout experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic—that some say continues to this day—caused unprecedented rates of health care providers to leave the industry and the providers who continued to work in mental health to take on more patients than they could successfully care for and manage. To combat excessively long wait times and the growing demand for appointments, providers began working more strictly within their scope. They stopped collaborating with the patient’s other providers to save time, and they now focus only on the most pressing issue during each visit, aiming to complete appointments in 30 minutes or less.

This lack of collaboration across providers and health care systems often forces providers to rush through appointments, making it incredibly difficult for individuals to receive the comprehensive care they need and ultimately contributing to negative outcomes, poor care delivery, and adverse events. This is especially concerning in mental health, where effective and safe treatment often requires exploring multiple facets of a patient’s situation.

An example of this is a patient seeing a psychiatrist to help manage their anxiety through medication and a therapist to manage their anxiety through talk therapy, with neither provider being fully aware of the other’s treatment plan and goals. Perhaps it is a child who receives treatment from both a behavior analyst and an occupational therapist, but the providers are working in a contradictory manner with each other. Instead of receiving organized, patient-centered treatment, each patient is met by a system that makes it nearly impossible to receive a clear diagnosis and a consistent and effective treatment plan. These scenarios are extremely common in the mental health care space, even within the same hospital system, leaving patients who have taken the courageous first step toward mental health support feeling lost and hopeless.

Why seek help when that care only creates more questions and frustrations than answers?

As the demand for mental health care grows, the call for restructuring of the system is louder than ever. The current fragmented system can no longer keep up with patients’ evolving needs of patients, and the providers are feeling the struggle of a broken system. They are overbooked and do not have the time they need to collaborate and provide quality care to every patient, which has led to increased rates of provider burnout, further staffing shortages, and patients needing to be seen more frequently. This cycle of broken care can be stopped by itself breaking down the silos between providers and systems and workings marter instead of harder.

The Problem: The System

In mental health care, survey data indicate that up to 40% of patients report being confused or unclear about their diagnosis, often due to overlapping symptoms and inconsistent provider communication. The system can also be confusing and inefficient, making it difficult for patients to receive the quality care they need. Due to this fragmented system and the growing complexity of diagnosis, this percentage could climb drastically in the next few years.

Providers within the current mental health care system are forced to work independently in silos without sharing information or coordinating care. Therapists, specialty doctors, and primary care doctors use separate records and communication channels, all of which require patients to sign releases to share their records. This lack of information sharing and coordination can lead to miscommunication, missing information, inaccurate diagnoses, and prescription errors, such as patients being prescribed medications with adverse drug interactions. Patients may also have to repeat their story multiple times, could face delays in treatment, or might receive conflicting advice.

Nicole Clark, MSN, BA, PMH-RN | Image Credit: © Adult and Pediatric Institute

Although mental health care has come a long way, with greater awareness, improved therapies, and a greater number of specialized providers, the system has rarely functioned as a truly integrated or seamless structure.

There are several issues behind this growing fragmentation:

• Separation from general health care: mental health services have historically operated in silos, limiting connections with other medical providers
• Stigma: pervasive stigma around mental illness has delayed investment and slowed integration with broader health systems
• Limited resources: demand for care has often outpaced available services, resulting in long wait times and care gaps
• Lack of coordination: providers such as therapists, primary care physicians, psychiatrists, and community services frequently work in isolation, creating a disconnected patient experience.

Why does fixing the system matter now? More patients need a more tailored system that will be able to serve them—because of the increasing complexity of therapies, mental health conditions, and treatment plans—something our current system isn’t ready to support. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this trend, fueling a demand for mental health services, especially among younger individuals. Postpandemic stress, anxiety, and depression have placed an increasing strain on an already fragmented system. Without stronger coordination between psychiatrists, therapists, and primary care doctors, patients with complex needs risk falling through the cracks.

What Integrated Care Looks Like

For providers, collaborative mental health care means working in sync with other providers to deliver more effective, patient-centered care. It goes beyond referrals or handoffs. Integrated care involves clear communication with your patient’s other doctors ; consistent follow-up, whether it’s scheduling appointments with your practice or coordinating with other health care services; and shared decision-making with your patient’s broader care team and systems.

In practice, this could mean a therapist and a primary care physician sharing clinical notes to align on a patient’s anxiety treatment and medication plan or a school counselor connecting with a child’s outside provider to ensure consistency in behavioral strategies between school and home.

For today’s increasingly complex mental health care landscape, integrating care isn’t a bonus. It is essential and effective. Providers who adopt collaborative models are not only improving outcomes but enhancing efficiency and reducing burnout through more coordinated workflows and supportive team decision-making.

Benefits of Breaking the Silos

With better communication across all provider channels, patients will see better outcomes. They are likely to feel the impact of crumbling care silos almost instantly. They will no longer have to carry the burden of coordinating confusing medical diagnoses, processes, and treatment. Instead, they will receive clearer diagnoses, more consistent care, and a renewed sense of hope as they work toward recovery with a team that’s truly aligned.

The benefits don’t stop with patients; providers also gain. With strengthened collaboration, providers are better equipped to make informed decisions for all their patients and streamline workflows. Over time, this will lead to lower burnout, improved job satisfaction, stronger patient-provider relationships, and more positive outcomes, which, ultimately, increase reimbursement rates.

Breaking the silos isn’t just about fixing what’s broken—it’s about building a mental health care system that works better for everyone.

What Providers Can Do

Providers can start by encouraging provider collaboration across all channels of care. Having clients fill out intake forms and sign releases before their first appointment is a good first step. Also, if a therapist is recommending a specific treatment, they should make sure that the patient’s primary care physician is informed and aligned with the treatment plan. This can be as simple as faxing over treatment plans to the primary care physician’s office.

Technology is a key enabler here as well. Shared health records and collaborative platforms can streamline coordination across providers. Investing in interoperability ensures that every provider involved in a patient’s care has access to the same, up-to-date information. Most electronic health records offer information sharing between providers, which typically only require the patient to log onto their portal and add the provider with whom to share information.

When teamwork is prioritized, the mental health care system can truly supports patients and providers. Building a culture of communication, even informally, helps lay the groundwork for a truly collaborative and effective care model.