How Iris Telehealth’s Medical Leadership Team Promotes
Quality Care

At Iris Telehealth, our top priority is ensuring quality care throughout each patient’s behavioral health journeys. To achieve this, we partner with healthcare organizations across the U.S., providing access to top-notch providers, quality behavioral health programming, and our medical leadership team.

This team, comprised of Dr. Thomas Milam, Dr. Tracy Mullare, LaDonna Chirpas, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC, and Don C. Napier II, LISW-CP, promotes quality care, works closely with our provider team, and supports our partner clinics with their medical expertise.

We are excited to share a glimpse into the team’s goals, successes, their personal perspectives, and insights into our care philosophy.

 

Ensuring quality care is always priority number one

Each day, the medical leadership team works to promote high-quality behavioral health care, ensure we form partnerships built on quality, and recruit providers who deliver the best care possible.

Don Napier post headshot“The medical leadership team at Iris Telehealth is dedicated to enhancing the quality, accessibility, and integration of behavioral health services.
By prioritizing evidence-based patient-centered approaches, and innovative technologies, we aim to deliver superior mental health care and support continuous improvement in clinical outcomes.
Our collaborative efforts with broader healthcare systems and commitment to professional development reflect our focus on achieving the best possible health outcomes for the patients of our clinic partners.”
Don C. Napier II, LISW-CP, Director of Counseling and Psychological Services, Iris Telehealth

An essential aspect of this team’s role is collaborating with our clinical hiring team, operations, and sales. While they work with many divisions within the organization, their goal is to align quality with productivity and financial metrics, and sales.

Dr. Thomas Milam, our Chief Medical Officer, says that his team works with others at Iris to help providers balance their time delivering care, documenting effectively, and communicating with teams.

 

No two days looks the same across the medical leadership team

 According to our Medical Director of Outpatient Services, Dr. Tracy Mullare, every day hits on a different realm of what they do.

On any given day, our medical leadership team juggles:

  • Administrative tasks
  • Scoping clinical calls
  • Provider interviews
  • Ongoing quality initiatives
  • Chart and peer reviews
  • Provider and partner calls

However, Dr. Milam emphasizes they always put patient care issues first, noting, “We have to be able to flex to issues that arise when providers or partners have concerns about a patient encounter.”

He highlights the importance of flexibility and adaptability in this role as well.

“We have to address those fairly quickly and it means being flexible and having great abilities to move between meetings with different topics and to communicate effectively.”

 

Director of Counseling and Psychological Services, Don Napier, shares Iris Telehealth’s care philosophy

“At Iris Telehealth, our care philosophy is centered on delivering patient-focused, evidence-based, and integrated behavioral health services through accessible and flexible telehealth solutions.

 

 

We prioritize collaborative care, quality, and compassion in all our interactions, continuously striving to enhance our services and support early intervention and prevention in mental health.

Our approach ensures that each patient receives personalized, high-quality care that addresses their unique needs and contributes to their overall well-being.”

 

 

 

We aim to be good clinical and financial partners

The medical team maintains a longitudinal relationship between providers and partners. On the partner side, this team often sits on calls with potential partners to get to know them, learn more about their population, and determine what their ideal provider looks like.

“The medical leadership team strives to ensure that Iris continues to form partnerships that are built on providing quality behavioral health care. We also must ensure that the Iris family of providers are top-notch to be able to deliver the best care possible.”
LaDonna Chirpas, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC, Director of Nurse Practitioner Services

 

Additionally, the medical leadership team attends partner calls to learn about any ongoing needs, like patient volumes, protocol, and generally review how things are going.

 

At Iris, the partner relationship is something that grows over time.

“We want to be good clinical partners as well as good financial partners – we’re constantly thinking about what that means. Sometimes that must evolve in terms of operational things we may need to change or adjust to be a better partner to a provider who maybe feels like they need something more from us – guidance, leadership, pay, benefits. To partners that love what we do, and they want more.”
Dr. Thomas Milam, Chief Medical Officer, Iris Telehealth

With our Iris providers, the medical leadership team is with them from day one, going through interviews, and getting to know them and their preferences.

Dr. Mullare, shares, “It’s fun to meet providers at the beginning of their journeys with Iris, learn what they’re looking for, and let them know what to expect about the process.”

After placement, the team checks-in with them to ask about any concerns, issues, or questions. They also review where they’re going professionally and see how they’re doing personally, too.

 

A look at our medical team’s biggest successes

We asked the medical team about how they see their biggest successes here at Iris, and these were their answers:

 

“The partnership this year with Texas Health on THBHVV. This program has provided behavioral health services to many patients who did not have access before. Many of the Iris staff have done a lot of work to get the program up and running smoothly. We look forward to many more partnerships of this kind in the future.”

LaDonna Chirpas, FNP-BC, PMHNP-BC, Director of Nurse Practitioner Services

 

 

Don Napier post headshot

 

“The biggest success of the Iris Telehealth medical group is their pioneering role in integrating behavioral health services through telehealth, which has led to expanded access, high-quality care, and positive clinical outcomes.”

Don C. Napier II, LISW-CP, Director of Counseling & Psychological Services, Iris Telehealth

 

“I think about how we’ve been able to grow – that has been amazing. We’re not losing focus on what we do, which is providing quality care via telehealth. We continue to meet the increasing need, we’re being innovative, and we’re thinking about how to execute quality care. That’s the focus and drive, making sure patients are getting the care they need.”

Dr. Tracy Mullare, our Medical Director of Outpatient Services


“I would say having such gifted, experienced, and talented people in the medical group has enabled our company to grow faster  because we can trust each other to do the work that we say we’re going to do in the divisions we oversee.

You have to trust your team in medicine and we have built trust here and created an environment where other divisions can trust us, too, and I’m most proud of that. I think that’s a real gift to have that as a medical group team.”

Dr. Thomas Milam, Chief Medical Officer, Iris Telehealth

 

Learn more about the Iris support pillars

If you’d like to learn how our medical team can help support your organization, don’t hesitate to reach out today by contacting us here.

Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about the other pillars of support our teams provide, check out our other spotlights here:

At Iris, we’re proud to provide quality support to all our partners so they can help their patient population get the quality behavioral health care they need.

How Two Health Systems Transformed Their Approach to Behavioral Health Care 

Virtual care helps transform a health system’s approach to behavioral health care, giving their communities and providers much needed support. However, there are several considerations to keep in mind when it comes to virtual behavioral health integration.  

In a webinar hosted by Becker’s Hospital Review, healthcare leaders from Elliot Health System and Texas Health Resources shared their strategic and economic cases for behavioral health integration, insights into implementing virtual services into their organizations, and the benefits of integration.  

Provider shortages make virtual behavioral health a strategic priority in Texas and New Hampshire 

The behavioral health provider shortage continues to be a challenge for many healthcare organizations. And, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services, 246 of the 254 counties in the state are designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas.  

Kathi Cox, Chief Operating Officer, Ambulatory & Virtual Channel at Texas Health Resources (THR) shared that Texas is one of largest growing areas in the country and with more people moving to the region, the demand for behavioral health grows.  

“Texas Health happens to be one of the health systems in this community that has a very robust inpatient behavioral health service line across multiple hospitals within our system. However, we didn’t have any low acute services as part of our portfolio.” 

She went onto share that depression is at an all-time high and there’s a lack of resources to treat the youth and senior members of their community. For low acuity behavioral health, Cox shared that patients may be waiting anywhere from six to 10 weeks for a first appointment. 

 

 
 
“When we think about Texas Health and how we approach this, the idea was to provide a longitudinal offering for the people in our community that would allow them to be treated for behavioral health within an integrated network of providers across our primary care physicians and our hospitals.”
Kathi Cox, Chief Operating Officer, Ambulatory and Virtual Channel, Texas Health Resources

 

In New Hampshire, Dr. Holly Mintz, Chief Medical Officer at Elliot Health System (Elliot), shared that they have also experienced a shortage of resources, citing they’re one of the few hospitals that have an inpatient behavioral health and geriatric psychiatry unit.  

Reflecting on the lack of resources in their community, Dr. Mintz discussed the importance of ensuring patients had someone they could see for their behavioral health needs. 
 
“We looked at the number of behavioral health calls that our triage nurses were receiving, and we knew we needed to do better. We needed to do better in placing people with therapists and better understanding what they need as far as either medication management or therapy.  

We want to make sure that it was not acceptable to have a 60-day wait between a referral and an intake process, let alone seeing a provider. We really needed to focus on decreasing the time to care, which we knew would benefit care holistically.” 

Virtual behavioral health care enables early access to treatment and better outcomes  

Behavioral health touches everyone and making sure people can get care they need when they need it is at the heart of every healthcare organization’s mission.  

Additionally, implementing a solution like virtual behavioral health care comes with considerations health systems must think through to determine where it will fit into their priorities and ensure the solution makes good financial sense.  

At Elliot, Dr. Mintz says they viewed virtual behavioral health as an avenue to improve early access, positively impact outcomes, and prevent hospitalizations.  

Dr. Mintz shares they learned that one out of every five calls their triage nurses received were about behavioral health, and the average length of the call was around 27 to 30 minutes, causing providers to burn out and keeping patients from timely care. 

 
“We were able to convert those triage calls into actual full intakes from a licensed social worker, that provided the patient with a full evaluation, and were billable. We were able to cover the cost of investing in provider hiring by converting those triage calls to a full intake.  
There’s a brief triage (assessing presence of a crisis), then the patients have an intake and transfer within one to two business days. That visit is billable. It’s a benefit for everyone and helped make this new program sustainable.”
Dr. Holly Mintz, Chief Medical Officer, Ambulatory Care Services, Elliot Health Systems

 

 

Discussing how THR viewed integrating virtual behavioral health services, Cox shared that they view it as an investment – thinking about behavioral health as a component of their other service lines, rather than a standalone program.  

“For our chronic patients, whether they are facing CHS challenges, COPD, hypertension or diabetes, behavioral health ends up being an underlying challenge for these patients. The benefit for all the service lines comes when we can address those mental health challenges of those patients.”  

Behavioral health integration defines success for health systems  

Every organization defines success differently. However, one common thread between Elliot and THR is ensuring behavioral health care is a priority and well-integrated into patient care.  

Reflecting on this Cox shared her vision of what success at THR looks like in the next several years.  


“Success in three to five years looks like very strong relationships between our behavioral health and employed physicians – whether that’s in our psychiatric practice, inpatient, or outpatient space. Rather than it be two different areas – these groups are working together. 
 
Traditionally, you have a lot of primary care physicians or specialists dealing with their patient’s medical health over here and mental health issues over there – it’s very disjointed. 
Now that we’ve created a much more integrated approach, there’s an opportunity for those things to work together. If we are collaborating across the organization for these patients, I think that’s a big success area.”
Kathi Cox, Chief Operating Officer, Ambulatory and Virtual Channel, Texas Health Resources

 

For Dr. Mintz, she shared Elliot aims to create a straightforward system for their behavioral health patients.  

“We are looking to enhance a straightforward process for patients and help them navigate it. So, when somebody presents with cancer, there’s a nurse navigator that helps them navigate through the system.  

What we hope to do is make things very simple so when a primary care provider sees a patient who needs behavioral health services and has a general assessment of what they need, they’re referred to one place – there’s not nine different referrals where they could potentially go, and there’s an understanding of what the provider feels that patient needs.” 

Payers are becoming more aware of the need to provide behavioral health services  

For health systems, transforming their service lines comes with considerations around payers. At Elliot, Dr. Mintz shared that payers are becoming more aware of the need to provide behavioral health services, noting that insurance companies are becoming more expansive.  

Dr. Mintz also said that they continue discussing the importance of expanding opportunities for behavioral health patients with lawmakers and their Department of Health and Human Services.  

For THR, Cox noted that they’re cautiously optimistic about the payer.  

“We’re still a fee for service area of the country, value-based hasn’t really hit us at all here in Texas. Everything we do is very fee-for-service based. I think that payers are saying that behavioral health is important.  

We still have not seen an adjustment in how their coverage may be expanded or reimbursed in a meaningful way that pays for the cost of taking care of patients.” 

At times, access to community mental health centers can be delayed up to a year  

For primary care providers, they may not always be comfortable working with behavioral health patients without the specialty expertise or insights into medication management.    

Child Receiving Care

 

 

At Elliot, Dr. Mintz shared that one of the most common things she hears from their medical group is the challenges they face with patients who have behavioral health conditions they’re not comfortable managing.

 

For example, if a patient is on medications or doses that the provider isn’t comfortable with, Dr. Mintz says it demands and deserves a specialty opinion.

She went on to say that a key challenge with managing these patients is access and it sometimes can be delayed up to a year for community mental health centers.  

To address these challenges, Dr. Mintz shared that Elliot is developing a stability clinic for patients who need a higher level of care.  

“We’re also enabling the providers to help explain to patients what they actually need so that the patients can understand they’re going to be with somebody for three months temporarily, but they will be transitioned to another level of care.” 

The key to internal buy-in for launching a behavioral health program  

Implementing a behavioral health program comes with financial and practical considerations that can help influence buy-in from stakeholders across the organization.  

At THR, Cox shared that they have a strategic initiative called, “Vision 2026,” that puts the patient at the center of every decision they make. Together, they worked to better understand their community and determine where their patients were going for care. 

They also wanted to tune into their data and have a good understanding whether they need to build or buy a solution. When they started to look for a partner, they did a lot of research and shared the findings with their organization.  

THR also wanted to ensure their physicians were on-board and shared how it would complete their continuum of care.  

Cox also shared that the patients were a key part of the equation, along with their overall organization.  
 
“Up until now we released them [patients] into the wild with no way to lasso them back or to have physicians where their medical home was, have information about their treatment.  

Then finally, the last stakeholder is our organization. We want to make sure they understand how we are staying accountable and what the outcomes are that we promised and how we are achieving them.” 

For Dr. Mintz at Elliot, her team met with their medical group to understand their challenges and their primary take away was the need for behavioral health access.  

They also determined integrating a solution that would provide more support would inherently drive provider satisfaction and be appealing to future providers.  


“We were able to help engage our senior leadership in really bolstering our outpatient support, in addition to the fact that we all know it’s a competitive world out there, and we’re all hoping to attract providers, triage nurses, and medical assistants.  
If we can take a situation that is causing a significant amount of stress and manage it better, we hope that we will be on people’s top of mind for a place where they want to work and deliver care.”
Dr. Holly Mintz, Chief Medical Officer, Ambulatory Care Services, Elliot Health Systems

 

At Elliot, 80% of virtual care is for their behavioral health services  

Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been much discussion around a virtual versus an in-person approach to healthcare.  

For behavioral health, virtual care has helped expand the reach of care and help open up the pool of providers available to organizations like Elliot and THR.  

At Elliot, Dr. Mintz shared the exceptional advantage virtual care provides to their organization overall and the time to care for patients.  
 
“We’ve been able to hire four to five other providers who are working virtually, who are helping us manage our behavioral health patients, both with therapy as well as with intake. Virtual care allowed us to expand beyond our state walls.  

We’ve gone from a 60 day wait for an intake to now we can do an intake within one to three business days, and that’s because of telehealth.” 

Next steps to building out your health system’s behavioral health programming  

We are so grateful for the time Dr. Holly Mintz and Kathi Cox shared with us. Thank you for your partnership and for all the incredible work you are all doing to expand behavioral health to your community.  

Weren’t able to make it to the webinar? You can catch the full video here.

If you’d like to learn more and figure out the next steps to building out your health systems behavioral health programming, you can contact us today to get started!  

Dr. Tracy Mullare on Pediatric Behavioral Health Care

Half of all behavioral health conditions show initial signs before the age of 14, and 75% of behavioral health conditions begin before the age of 24.

The need for access to quality behavioral health care has never been more important, and helping ensure children get care early is essential to their long-term well-being.

Today, we can see the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented amount of need and impact it had on children behaviorally and academically. And due to the provider shortage, we’re still catching up.

Fortunately, kids are back in school, they have structure and the ability to be on their normal developmental trajectory again. There’s also a bigger lens on behavioral health and better recognition of when children and adolescents need behavioral health care.

Let’s look at how improving access to mental health care is essential, how children and adolescents engage with virtual care, and how virtual care is instrumental to meeting children and families with accessible behavioral health care.

Accessibility is a key challenge for patients and providers

Finding timely care can be incredibly difficult due to the high demand for behavioral health services. Today, many providers have a wait list or limited schedules that may not match up with what a family needs.


“Wait times to see a child and adolescent psychiatrist average 7.5 weeks, even as incidence of wide-ranging mental health, developmental, and behavioral disorders grow.”
American Association of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

 

Child Receiving Care

 

 

For families, scheduling time off from work to bring their children into an office or required traveling can serve as barriers to care. Thankfully, telehealth can bridge this gap.

 

 

 

A 2020 report from the Child Mind Institute highlighted that telehealth holds promise for children in marginalized, rural, low-income, or high-risk groups who have limited access to traditional care.

It’s also important to recognize that access to care affects both sides of the provider-patient equation.

Because of the volume and intensity of care, it’s essential that providers remain mindful of their own quality of life and prioritize self-care to help ensure they can provide the best quality of work.

For providers, working in a virtual environment can make achieving work-life balance easier. Allowing them to avoid stressors like long commutes and giving them more time to engage in what they love.

 

“I like meditating, doing yoga, and spending time in nature. I make sure there’s time for that, so I can return to work feeling enthusiastic and refreshed every day.”
Dr. Kavita Vasu, Iris Telehealth Provider


 

Better work-life balance helps increase job satisfaction and enables the provider to be more present in their work.

 

Adolescents are attuned to technology and adjust quickly

Adolescents are used to establishing rapport and relationships in a virtual environment. They can get to know people through that medium where sometimes other generations may take a bit longer.

Additionally, adolescents might appreciate the security of not running into friends or peers at an in-person office. College students can open a laptop in a private space and have time for their appointments – they don’t have to travel somewhere.

For kids, using chat tools can be a nice way for them to express themselves if speaking their feelings or thoughts out loud is too challenging.

 

 
Maria Lopez-Rosario-post-headshot“I usually try to see the patient alone, but if the parent is around, they might say, ‘Okay, I’m going to write this in the chat because I don’t want anybody to hear it.’ And they’ll write something like, ‘I have a girlfriend.’
It’s more private and chat doesn’t make it personal. I’m still getting all the information in whatever way they like to give it to me. Being virtual gives you a lot more options than being in person.”
Dr. María López-Rosario


 

It takes creativity to engage with children and providers have been great about finding new ways to engage this population.

 

It’s important to have family involvement in treatment

The standards of care that apply to in-person treatment are the same ones applied in telehealth. In a virtual setting, the provider may interview the family together, interview the child separately, or have segments of the appointment dedicated to each, depending on the situation.

If telehealth providers are meeting with patients virtually at their home, it might take more education and level setting around appointment structure. However, it will mirror what would happen in a provider’s office in terms of confidentiality.

To make sure everyone is comfortable, it can even be helpful to pan the camera around the office to show the family you’re in a private room.

As child psychiatrist, it’s critical to ensure everyone has time so the provider can gather collateral information about the child.

For example, the provider will need to assess how the child is functioning at home, school, academically, and socially.  If a child is being assessed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), they need to exhibit symptoms in more than one environment – a holistic assessment is important to patient care.

 

Virtual care is instrumental in meeting community needs

While healthcare organizations understand working with child and adolescent psychiatrists is critical, sourcing these providers to care for patients across the age range can be challenging.


“Ratios of child and adolescent psychiatrists per 100,000 children range by state from 4 to 65, with a national average of 14 child and adolescent psychiatrists per 100,000 children – including Puerto Rico and District of Columbia.”
American Association of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry

 

When you’re looking for a particular specialty — like a provider who focuses on intellectual disabilities, patients on the autism spectrum, or eating disorders — that becomes an even larger gap to fill.

Telehealth has been a tremendous tool for organizations, allowing them to leverage providers from all over the country, who specialize in exactly what their population needs.

 

Getting behavioral health care early can help children return to their normal developmental trajectory

Child psychiatry can provide a child with the support and services they need to help them get back on their normal developmental trajectory.

Children are vulnerable to untreated symptoms worsening and impacting their social functioning, academic functioning, and overall development. It’s a vicious cycle that can have lasting impacts on their self-esteem.

The most commonly treated behavioral health conditions in children include the following:

  • 9.8% — ADHD
  • 9.4% — anxiety
  • 8.9% — behavioral problems
  • 4.4% — depression

Early intervention and access to care sets kids up for success.

For example, with conditions like eating disorders, it’s important to treat kids while they’re growing because it can affect bone density over time.

 

Awareness is the silver lining in behavioral health

In recent years, with the COVID-19 pandemic, awareness around behavioral health has grown.

People are aware of the need to support children’s mental health and the impact it can have on the rest of their lives. Everyone is working hard to make sure access is increased.

Virtual care has been fundamental in reaching underserved areas and the benefits it can provide to families across the U.S. is significant.

We’re passionate about children’s behavioral health and would love to talk with your organization about how to improve access to care in your community. If you’d like to learn more about Iris Telehealth and how we approach child and adolescent mental health treatment, we’d love to talk with you today. You can contact us here for more information!

5 Ways Health Systems Can Optimize Behavioral Health Services

Behavioral health is an essential part of care, and helping ensure your health system is equipped with the clinicians you need, high-quality services, and a support team to help provide guidance and help track and improve metrics are all key components of a successful behavioral health approach.

In this blog, we outline the five ways health systems can optimize the behavioral health services at their organization.

1. Create a holistic strategy across all patient journeys and sites of care and define what success is for your health system

There are a few scenarios that underscore the importance of having a holistic strategy across the patient journey.

First, your patients need timely access to care. If they can’t access outpatient behavioral healthcare, they may escalate to the emergency department.

Next, if a patient is discharged from your inpatient units without proper discharge-follow-up, they may need to be readmitted.

Patient journeys span sites of care and ensuring a holistic strategy to the service line is critical.

In addition, behavioral and physical health don’t exist in silos – they go hand-in-hand. For example, if a patient is experiencing a chronic condition that requires medication, there could be a behavioral health component that prevents them from staying adherent to their treatment plan.

Behavioral health conditions like anxiety and depression can worsen chronic conditions like cardiovascular disease, asthma, diabetes, and cancer. Read brief.

 


“These factors require a holistic and planful strategy. Not all patient journeys need to be solved simultaneously, but having an idea of the ideal end-state will ensure every step you take gets you closer to your desired goal.”
Dan Ferris, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Iris Telehealth

 

 

2. Integrate virtual providers into your inpatient psychiatric units to ensure patients can access behavioral health care and providers aren’t getting burned out

Inpatient psychiatric units across the country are having problems with provider burnout, staffing shortages, and challenges operating at peak census. On-call and vacation coverages only add to the stress.

Augmenting onsite teams with virtual teams can deliver high-quality care while ensuring staff is working top-of-license, hospitals are optimizing revenue and providers are not burning out. 

Integrating virtual and on-site care teams in inpatient psychiatric units is a best practice deployed nationwide, enabling a continuity and level of care that may not be possible if you are fully reliant on on-site providers. 

3. Provide 24/7/365 access to quality behavioral healthcare in EDs to increase throughput and reduce ED boarding

On average, patients wait 4.7 hours to receive mental health care in the emergency department.

If a patient is left waiting for hours to see a psychiatrist, that’s time the room could be used for another patient in need of urgent care. The faster a patient can get through the ED, the more financially sustainable the ED will become.

Not only is timely care the right thing to do financially, it’s also the right thing to do clinically.



“As it relates to ED throughout, virtual care has helped us reduce the time our behavioral health patients spend in the ED. Before our partnership, the patients who had the longest length of stay in our emergency departments were our behavioral health patients.
We launched a whole value stream approach, and with help from Iris, we’ve seen the length of stay decrease from 12 hours to nine hours. This 25% improvement has had a big impact on our ED throughput.”
Joe Clubb, Vice President of Operations in Mental Health and Addiction Services at Allina Health

 

 

We’re proud of our work with Allina to help their population gain access to behavioral health care. In addition to our partnership with Allina, we’ve helped our partners increase ED discharge rates 15% while reducing 7-day revisit rates 42%.

Click here to read the full story of how Iris helped support Allina Health’s behavioral health initiatives.

 

4. Optimize behavioral health care delivery for patients across the outpatient spectrum by leveraging short-term care models, top of license providers, and digital tools to ensure every patient receives timely care



“These factors require a holistic and planful strategy. Not all patient journeys need to be solved simultaneously, but having an idea of the ideal end-state will ensure every step you take gets you closer to your desired goal.”
Dan Ferris, Chief Strategy & Marketing Officer at Iris Telehealth

 

 

Widening the aperture and focusing on patient acquisition, loyalty, and reducing leakage creates cascading financial benefits that support long-term investment in behavioral health.

Additionally, patients seen by an integrated behavioral health team reduces total cost of care, improves outcomes, and reduces burnout of your existing providers.

 

5. Leverage data to measure and manage key clinical, operational, and financial KPIs

You can only manage what you can measure, and success starts by defining what key performance indicators and operational, financial and quality metrics matter most to your hospital.

For some organizations, it might be ED throughput, length of stay in the med surg unit, average daily census patient in the psychiatric unit or no-show rates in an outpatient clinic.

By measuring and understanding the data, you know where the opportunites for improvement exist.

At Iris, we have the clinical and operational expertise that helps ensure we’re putting what we learn into action. Our Quality Management program ensures we measure and monitor data regularly and drive continuous improvement activities to ensure our programs are hitting on key financial, operational, and clinical KPIs.

If you’d like to learn more about how Iris Telehealth can help you optimize your behavioral health solution at your hospital, please contact us today!

How Organizations are Leveraging Virtual Care for MAT Services

In a webinar hosted by Iris Telehealth Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Thomas Milam, Beth Engelhorn, Executive Director of Southside Behavioral Health in South Central Virginia and Iris provider Dale McQueeney, PMHNP, shared how virtual services can help optimize care delivery for patients experiencing substance use disorders (SUDs).

This blog breaks down the core takeaways of that webinar to look at the current state of the opioid epidemic and the role of virtual MAT programs in the crisis.

The leading percentage of overdoses derive from illegally made fentanyl

For decades now, communities across the U.S. have grappled with the opioid epidemic, which saw a significant increase between 1999 and 2010, reaching a stable trend between 2010 and 2020.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the leading percentage of overdoses derives from illegally made fentanyl with no other opioids or stimulants — closely followed by illegally made fentanyl mixed with cocaine and illegally made fentanyl with methamphetamine.

Access to Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) services that support these patients is critical.

Dale McQueeney, PMHNP, has been with Iris Telehealth for four years and works with the Center for Human Development in rural eastern Oregon, serving as the primary provider for their MAT program and their Associate Medical Director for substance use disorder treatment.

According to Dale, patients experiencing OUD may encounter the following challenges in their journey to recovery:

  • Homelessness
  • Food insecurity
  • Unemployment
  • Lack of regular healthcare

These individuals need a lot of support and require a team of professionals to help them get the care they need, whether that’s dedicated certified recovery mentors, case managers, or a SUD team.

The role of Medication Assisted Treatment in delivering life-saving care

MAT programs engage patients in whole-person care that helps treat OUD by helping normalize brain chemistry, block the euphoric effects of opioids, and relieve physical cravings.

The benefits of MAT:

  • Decreases opioid-related overdose deaths
  • Decreases illicit opioid use and criminal activity
  • Increases social functioning and retention in treatment
  • Decreases transmission of infectious disease (HIV and Hep C)
  • Improves maternal and fetal outcomes for pregnant or breastfeeding women

At Southside Behavioral Health, offering access to virtual MAT services is essential to effective whole-patient care

Southside Behavioral Health is a community service board that provides community mental health care across rural South Central Virigina.

They serve approximately 3,000 people —including through their MAT program, which heavily leverages virtual care due to the shortage of local providers who can deliver these services.


“We offer MAT services hand-in-glove with our other services. If someone walks in the door, we do a comprehensive needs assessment and figure out everything they need.
If they want treatment for OUD, we send them to our nurse practitioner that prescribes all other mental health medication. We recently hired an Iris psychiatrist who helps us with that, and we consider it as part of the treatment continuum within the agency and don’t differentiate between that and anything else someone comes in for.”
Beth Engelhorn, Executive Director, Southside Behavioral Health

 

In addition to virtual providers, Southside also has specialized staff who treat SUDs and focus on whole-person care. They work with the person on their goals, and they choose their own course of treatment.

 

Good care starts with comprehensive assessments, informative screenings, and a non-judgmental approach

Beth’s care team at Southside conducts comprehensive assessments to figure out each patient’s needs.


“Our team is really good at working through all the assessments and why they need to be done. We are a grant funded program in regard to our MAT, so we’re required to have patients fill out an additional assessment that has to be done.
We make it a reward – if they complete the form, they get a gift card. We as a team work really hard to make sure the person feels heard and that they know they’re not just a number or a piece of data.”
Beth Engelhorn, Executive Director, Southside Behavioral Health

 

Most Southside patients receive virtual care directly in their clinics due to bandwidth limitations in their rural communities. At their first MAT appointment, Southside staff will have patients take a drug screening – with subsequent screenings happening at provider discretion as patients continue their treatment.

The results of these screenings help the provider have a conversation with the patient about how it could affect their treatment, safety, and provide information to help the individual decide how they want to proceed.

From the providers perspective, Dale says that she’s rarely surprised to learn what shows up in a drug screen. She says communication is key and she lets her patients know that she won’t stop prescribing to them if they tell her what they’re using.

Dale says the information she gains about her patients provides guidance into how to support them.

 

Reducing barriers to care and reducing stigma are keys to quality treatment

Dale schedules each patient’s first visit to take place over video at the clinic whenever possible, so she and the patient can make eye contact and the team can conduct the initial drug screening.

However, to reduce as many barriers to care as possible, Dale holds subsequent appointments over the phone or over video from the patient’s home if it’s harder for them to come into the office.

During her visits with patients, Dale is also mindful of the stigma patients may experience day-to-day.

A study by the Cohen Veterans Network found that 31% of Americans have worried others judging them when telling someone they’ve sought behavioral health services. The report states that 21% have lied about getting care.



“I try to bring a sense of non-judgement into all my interactions, and I listen. They appreciate that I meet them where they are, and I get to know them as people. Low barrier, non-judgement, and harm reduction are all the techniques I try to bring.”
Dale McQueeney, PMHNP, Iris Telehealth provider

 

Ensuring patients can get quality care in a judgement-free space is crucial to their well-being and recovery.

 

Life-saving medications keep patients alive and are an important part of a harm-reduction approach

Dale shares that it’s very common for her patients to use substances outside of buprenorphine – like methamphetamine and cannabis. If she knows they’re going to be using methamphetamines, she recommends using fentanyl testing strips as a part of a harm-reduction approach.

Dale also shares other techniques she uses with her patients, including motivational interviewing.


“I do use a lot of motivational interviewing. I grab onto those little kernels, that little bit of hope, and I hope for them. I say things like, ‘I’m trying to keep you alive. I think you’re worth being here.’
And because they are – all of my patients are worth being here. I find those little things – there’s always something that you can grab onto.”
Dale McQueeney, PMHNP, Iris Telehealth provider

 

 

At Southside, Beth says they’ve had to provide a lot of training to move their providers towards a harm-reduction approach and lean on collaboration to help provide holistic for their patients.


“We offer people harm reduction kits where we give out fentanyl strips, syringes, and whatever someone needs to keep themselves safe.
We talk to them about their increased risk to their general health and it becomes a place of dialogue. We let their therapist know they tested positive for cocaine and amphetamines and the nurse practitioner reads my notes and we have a conversation about shared client. I appreciate the team approach – we share concern for their health and safety.”
Beth Engelhorn, Executive Director, Southside Behavioral Health

 

Virtual care helps bring addiction treatment to rural areas

The behavioral health provider shortage has hit many communities hard – especially those in rural parts of the country. According to the Health Resources & Services Administration, there are 122 million people living in Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs).

That makes sourcing behavioral health providers even more challenging for those living in rural areas. However, with telehealth, these communities can access specialists they otherwise wouldn’t be able to recruit.


“Virtual care has allowed us to bring in professionals, psychiatrists, nurse practitioners, therapists, where we wouldn’t be able to have them in our area at all. Our MAT program would probably not exist if we didn’t have virtual care.
It has actually allowed us to bring this to our community and let it grow. And not only that — to have really competent, talented people ready to provide those service.”
Beth Engelhorn, Executive Director, Southside Behavioral Health

 

Behavioral health providers like Dale, whose focus is on treating those with dual diagnoses and prescribing medication for addiction treatment, creates rich connections with her patients in Oregon, even while living in Maine.


“I want to emphasize the power of telehealth. I live in Maine and became aware of how devastated New England has been by the opioid epidemic. And then I learned how other regions of the country were similarly affected. Now through Iris Telehealth, I have the ability to use my skills and education to serve the people of rural Eastern Oregon. That’s all because of the power of telehealth.”
Dale McQueeney, PMHNP, Iris Telehealth provider

 

About Iris

If you’d like to learn more about Iris and our MAT services, please contact us today!

You can also click here to watch the full conversation with Beth, Dale, and Dr. Milam.

How Measurement Based Care Improves Care Quality for CCBHCs

Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers (CCBHCs) are required to meet a strict set of standards to ensure high-quality, timely care for their patients. But, they don’t have to tackle these exacting standards by themselves. For organizations looking to increase access for their communities and deliver quality behavioral health services, having a partner they can lean on to help track and effectively leverage data can be a strategic benefit.

In this blog, we’ll look at how a quality-focused, virtual behavioral health partnership can help CCBHCs meet their metrics and set new standards for care in their communities.

How CCBHCs approach measurement-based care

CCBHCs leverage required measures to drill down and determine how their organization is performing. These required measures include:

  • Time to services
  • Depression remission at 6 months
  • Depression screenings and follow-up plans
  • Screening for social drivers of health

Additionally, CCBHCs are required to have a continuous quality improvement plan in place to address opportunities for improvement.

For example, if a CCBHC’s average time to service is 25 days, they can drill down and determine the factors affecting the metric, how they compare to national statistics, and what they can do to decrease that number.

Challenges CCBHCs may face when tracking quality measures

Tracking and monitoring quality measures is required to keep CCBHC accreditation. However, that’s no easy feat when they must care for all patients regardless of age, diagnosis, or insurance status. With barriers like the provider shortage and available specialists in their area, meeting all patients with quality care isn’t easy.

In addition to ensuring they have enough team members to handle the extra responsibilities , organizations must also provide education to their staff, implement new workflows, and make sure they have a large enough staff to provide screenings and collect and evaluate data.

To help take on the extra bandwidth, sometimes organizations hire additional help or pivot roles.

CCBHCs may also encounter patients with specialty needs and require providers who specialize in specific conditions and treatments. Due to provider shortages and difficulty hiring in their local area, getting that extra help can prove challenging.

Fortunately, leveraging a virtual behavioral health partner can help CCBHCs achieve increased access to providers and support for quality tracking to meet their required metrics.

The benefits of a quality-focused partnership

Virtual behavioral health strategies are a key part of a CCBHCs long-term success. This partnership not only brings in additional providers to help meet demand, but it also supplies extra support to track quality measures.

This process starts with the CCBHC choosing to share their data with a trusted virtual behavioral health partner, like Iris Telehealth, who then analyses and identifies opportunities for improvement. At Iris, we look at the data of their story and learn how it relates to various factors. For example, if there was a sudden change that lasted three months, we can look at what happened at the point, whether good or bad, and determine what can do it about it or what we can learn to optimize services in the future.

Tracking quality metrics puts a lens on an organization’s operations and informs quality improvements. For Iris partners, we’ve been able to help them look at referral cues and wait lists to help determine what needs to happen for patients to be seen in a shorter amount of time.

We review metrics to ensure we’re using appropriate screenings for suicide, depression, anxiety, and use evidence-based measures to assess and track patient improvements. This process allows us to identify if there needs to be treatment plan revision.

Implementing virtual behavioral health strategies can help facilitate the following benefits:

  • Expansive staffing
  • Aggregation of quality measures
  • Access to specialists
  • Medical group leadership expertise
  • Robust support

To learn more about these benefits, be sure to check out our blog from our Medical Director of Outpatient Services, Dr. Tracy Mullare here.

The role of Iris Telehealth

At Iris, we have in-depth experience and a vast knowledge base we’ve collected after years of working with CCBHCs. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help your organization track quality metrics you’re required to meet, don’t hesitate to reach out – contact us here today.

How Virtual Behavioral Health Can Serve as a Long-Term Solution for Shortage Areas

In many rural areas across the U.S., and even in a lot of urban areas, there’s a significant lack of access to psychiatry or behavioral health services in general. Partially due to the ongoing (and worsening) psychiatry shortage, many healthcare organizations find it difficult to locate high-quality, local behavioral health providers to serve their communities.

Those challenges compound when an organization needs more specialized care — like bilingual providers or providers who specialize in working with children or older populations. Fortunately, virtual behavioral health services can go a long way toward filling those care gaps.

In this piece, we’ll break down how telehealth can benefit shortage areas across the country, what challenges your healthcare organization might face in implementing virtual behavioral health services, and best practices that will set you up for success.

What is a shortage area?

Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) is a federal designation that identifies an area as having a geographic shortage, which means there’s a shortage of providers for everyone in a defined geographic area.

There are also population-based shortages areas — Medically Underserved Areas (MUAs) or Medically Underserved Populations (MUPs), which signify a shortage of providers for a specific group of people — for example, migrant farmworkers or low-income patients. Organizations that qualify as facility HPSAs include public hospitals or nonprofit outpatient centers, correctional facilities, state mental health hospitals, and FQHCs.

Virtual behavioral health can provide critical behavioral health support to shortage areas

Shortage areas or HPSAs may be a particularly good fit for virtual behavioral health services programs because they are disproportionately affected by the national psychiatrist shortage.

Healthcare organizations in HSPAs are often unable to have an in-person provider on staff for their care setting, but through telehealth, they can access quality providers from across the country. Without utilizing virtual behavioral health services, organizations will often find themselves with long wait times — or without care entirely.

Having access to clinicians all over the country who can provide excellent care quickly and conveniently is a significant benefit for these organizations.

Virtual behavioral health can also open up access to providers with specific specialties that would otherwise be nearly impossible for healthcare organizations in HPSAs to staff. For example, in communities where the prominent language spoken isn’t English, having access to a telehealth provider who speaks that language is a huge benefit to patients as it enables them to see someone who they feel they can connect with.

Additionally, some providers specialize in behavioral healthcare for LGBTQIA+ patients or other specific patient populations. It can be hugely beneficial to have access to someone who is an expert in that area.

Through telehealth, your organization can access those specialties and fill gaps you can’t fill through your local provider network.

Challenges and considerations for implementing telehealth programs in HPSAs

Whenever your organization begins the process of searching for a virtual behavioral health provider, it might be difficult to find the right fit for your community. It’s important to make sure any potential providers understand the culture of your area and can work effectively with your specific patient populations.

Working with a telehealth vendor, like Iris Telehealth, can be beneficial through that process as they have in-depth knowledge and experience with identifying, interviewing, and matching providers who would be a good fit for your community and your organization.

Initially, your organization may also face challenges in locating adequate funding for your telepsychiatry program. However, there is no shortage of federal grants available to help bring any necessary resources or technology to your community — you just need to make sure you consider the time it could take to apply for and receive that grant funding.

Some good grant resources to keep an eye on include:

  • Rural Health Information Hub: RHIhub keeps an active list of all funding opportunities for all U.S. states and territories. If your organization is located in a rural area, this will be a great resource for current and future grants.
  • SAMHSA: SAMHSA keeps a comprehensive list of grants for the improvement of quality and availability of substance use and mental health treatment services.
  • Grants.gov: Grants.gov is the largest repository of federal grants for healthcare organizations across the country.

Setting your telehealth program up for success

Regardless of where your organization is located, there are certain steps you can take to help ensure the long-term success of your telepsychiatry program:

  1. Train and educate your staff: Training your staff on specific systems or processes you may need to implement for your telehealth program can seem daunting at first, but it’s an important step to ensure you have the buy-in from your team to launch a successful program. As you walk them through any changes that might come with your new program, remember there are many resources available to help train your staff on how to work with specific technologies. Start by reaching out to your local telehealth resource center to learn more.
  2. Work with a dedicated telehealth partner: If the prospect of launching your program and staffing it with telepsychiatry providers seems overwhelming, it may be a good idea for your organization to reach out to a company like Iris, who can help you set up your program from the ground up.
  3. Educate yourself and your staff on how federal and state policies apply to you: It’s important to make sure your organization is aware of how billing and reimbursement policies affect your telepsychiatry program. And remember, there’s no shortage of evidence that patients like having access to telehealth services.

No matter what stage you’re in with your telehealth program, support is out there to help you build a program that provides life-saving access to behavioral health services for your community.

If you’re looking for highly qualified, compassionate behavioral health clinicians with experience working in shortage areas, Iris Telehealth can help. Contact us for more information about building an effective telehealth program.

How Iris Telehealth’s IT Team Leverages Technical Expertise and Care to Support Providers and Daily Operations

Each day in IT is different, especially at Iris Telehealth where our team is responsible for supporting both clinicians and corporate team members. Their care and personability, alongside their in-depth technical expertise, sets them apart and creates exceptional experiences for the clinical and corporate sides of the house.

In this piece, we’ll take a look at some of the key duties and workflows our IT team puts in place to support our mission of creating a better world through healthy minds.

The mission of the IT team

Our IT team is multifaced. Through clinician support, IT creates reliability and confidence that providers will always have someone to turn to for technical support. In turn, our partners and their patients can depend on uninterrupted care and support.

For our Iris team members, this team supports workflows, efficiencies, and makes sure they have what they need to support our partners and clinicians. 

The IT team works 24/7 to support our services. For example, for Iris’s On-Demand Services line, providers may need assistance at all hours of the night and into the early morning. Our IT team is there to answer the call and make sure they have the support they need to keep seeing patients.

On a daily basis, this team is communicating with team members, assisting with tickets, and setting up orientations for providers and new corporate employees. They’re also helping build laptops for new team members and sending out emergency laptops when needed.

They’re also consistently monitoring security, doing regular health checks, and making sure everyone can do their jobs efficiently. Additionally, this team is also looking at the various licenses our team’s leverage to ensure they’re being utilized efficiently and look at ways to cut costs.

Over the last few years, this team has saved the company significant spending costs by cutting licenses and transiting into different software and merging applications. This consistent monitoring helps ensure the most efficient workflows and the best outcomes for our teams.

Top notch support for providers and organizations

One of the primary goals of the IT team is to set our providers up for success and ensure they know they have someone to rely on whenever they have a technical challenge. For Iris providers, the goal is to support their technical needs so they can focus on what they do best – providing high-quality patient care.

Regardless of how tech savvy a provider may be, the IT team views it as their job to make the provider feel comfortable. That’s why, during the resolution process, the IT team makes sure to give updates on progress to help ease the provider’s minds and allow them to continue doing their work without worry of a lingering technical problem.

On the partner side, our IT team ensure Iris providers have minimal downtime. For example, if a provider is encountering technical challenges with their laptop that can’t be solved with extensive troubleshooting, they quickly build a new laptop and send it to the provider overnight.

This level of support also takes the pressure off our partner’s shoulders. They can rely on our team to ensure our providers have the technical support they need, without tying up their in-house IT department.

Measurements of success

Most recently, the IT team was required to onboard two large groups of providers at one time. This process required coordination, laptop builds, answering calls, and managing a large surge of provider orientations. They handled everything seamlessly and our providers were able to get going without technical hang-ups.

Here are a few of their accomplishments over the last year:

  • 3,000 tickets resolved
  • Over 180 laptops built and replaced
  • 99% satisfaction rate among Iris providers and team members

Additionally, this team maintains a 95-percentile rate for Service Level Agreement (SLA). That means if there are 500 tickets in a month, only 3-4% of tickets in responding or resolving quickly were violated. The remaining are answered or receive a response within the hour. 

Learn more about our support pillars

If you’d like to learn more about the technical side of implementing telehealth into your organization, contact us today.

Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about the support our teams provide, you can view additional spotlights here:

At Iris, we’re proud to collaborate with our partners to help them succeed and be prepared for any challenges they may face in their day-to-day operations.

The Benefits of Virtual Behavioral Health Care in the Inpatient Unit

Ten years ago, helping healthcare organizations understand virtual workflows and virtual care pathways was much more complicated than it is today. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the adoption of virtual care across all medical specialties and primary care has been critical, especially in behavioral health.

Today, behavioral health usage rates remain high. At Iris Telehealth, it’s not unusual for our partners to use telehealth 50-75% of the time for behavioral health care services. Everyone is used to telehealth.

That means, rather than primarily focusing on connecting and seeing patients (the core of virtual care), we’re now able to focus on emerging workflows that enable analytics that track no-show rates, billing and coding patterns, and patient engagement.

One area where we’ve seen a high opportunity for workflow improvement and high impact on patient outcomes is leveraging virtual care in the inpatient psychiatric unit.

The reality of behavioral health care in the health system

Behavioral health patients seeking care for urgent issues and experiencing long wait times in the health system is nothing new. That’s because many hospitals don’t have access to behavioral health resources. When they don’t have this access, they leverage social workers for care coordination, therapy, and patient support.

If a patient comes in with cardiac or lung issues, you want them to meet with a provider with the appropriate skill set and knowledge to assess them based on their presentation. Many emergency departments have excellent providers who have been able to treat behavioral health patients, but nowadays the acuity is much higher.

Access to inpatient treatment for patients who might be manic, psychotic, or experiencing withdrawal can be challenging – and it may not always be easy and efficient to direct them to the appropriate hospital bed or step-down unit.

That’s where we’re finding that, for many health systems, the emergency department is becoming like an inpatient unit. For organizations that partner with a telehealth solution like ours, patients can be seen by a psychiatrist or a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP) in less than an hour of when they present to the ED.

From there, we can work with the ED staff on starting or restarting necessary medications or guiding the course of treatment – which makes for a better patient experience and smoother workflows for the on-site care teams.

In-person care verses virtual in inpatient psychiatric units

Through our partnerships with major hospitals and health systems across the country, we have found that hospitals and inpatient psychiatric units that have adopted workflows enable virtual care work very well.

When working with an organization, we like to learn about their culture around telehealth. We learn about their history and how they’ve embraced telehealth in the past.

It’s important for organizations to consider that the quality of an in-person provider isn’t necessarily better than that of a virtual care provider. We can get high-quality providers who want to work from their homes and virtually go into the inpatient psychiatry unit and ED, allowing patients to experience the high-quality care and professionalism they need and deserve.

Also, hospitals can have long-term virtual care providers seeing patients on inpatient units and engaging in rounding, team meetings, consults, and admitting/discharging patients.

A virtual behavioral health provider can be just as accessible throughout the day as an in-person provider. While you can’t knock on their door, you can send them a note through an instant messaging platform, text, or even call them on the phone just like an in-person provider.

There are many clinical duties on inpatient psychiatry units that require in-person support such as psych techs, nurses, and staff for things like lab draws and physical exams. However, in terms of behavioral health specialists, virtual providers can facilitate care that is as good as, or better than, in-person providers an organization might be able to recruit.

The key to integrating virtual and in-person providers

No matter the level of clinical care, trusting your team members is key, and that means spending time together. It’s important to note that being virtual doesn’t mean a provider is sitting at home doing nothing—it’s more like they’re in an office or a hospital next door. They may be 500 miles away, but they’re still available and responsive to patient and staff needs and questions.

For example, a nurse might have a question, or a patient might need to be seen twice or more during the day for something like an exacerbation of symptoms, possible side effects, or requesting to leave. In such cases a virtual provider would come back on video to see the patient and discuss concerns with the onsite team or even gather more collateral from family.

An on-site provider might be in a different location, stuck in traffic, and unavailable. However, a virtual provider can transcend those geographic barriers and see patients quickly with little if any delay.

Virtual care lends itself to collaboration and integration with on-site teams quite well. It allows for flexible, timely, and patient-centered care.

Virtual behavioral health programs and inpatient care

Continuity of care is critical to the patient experience. When you’re working with complex patients, it’s important to try and have continuity of care with the techs working around them and the nurses that can know and understand the nuances of their behavior.

With a solution like Scheduled Services, which is Iris’s approach to delivering virtual care, you have a provider working in the same units day after day — or being a part of the weeknight and weekend call teams and rounding team.

Building up the sense of continuity with the team and having that trust, consistency of care, and communication with patients in their behavioral health journey in the acute setting is very important.

Generally, our providers work on inpatient units just as an in-person provider would, though virtually. They have the same meetings, experiences with patients, and communication with the care team – all to help build that continuity.

The financial benefits of virtual behavioral health programs

There are also benefits of virtual behavioral health programs that lead to better financial outcomes. For example, by treating behavioral health, patients receive more holistic care that helps treat physical conditions in tandem, better improving total cost of care and reducing length of stay.

Additionally, having a virtual behavioral health solution in place can help improve ED throughput and ensure patients aren’t staying in the hospital longer than necessary.

There have also been recent policy shifts that have created major evolutions in how CMS and congress are working to look at virtual care reimbursement. It’s been more progressive than anything I’ve seen in my last 30 years of being in this field.

Change doesn’t happen a lot in medicine, but the recent changes to promote virtual access to care, particularly for people with mental health and substance use disorder issues, have been impressive and a huge win for patients and providers alike.

The future of behavioral health care

It’s important to challenge the myth that having someone on-site is better or necessary. Healthcare is moving away from care being solely driven by what happens in a brick and mortar facility.

In the future, not only will providers be working from home, but they’re also going to be seeing acute patients in the patient’s homes–patients who might otherwise have been hospitalized—in the emerging “hospital at home” and “remote patient monitoring” models that lend themselves quite naturally to virtual care.

Virtual care is helping the healthcare industry rethink our models and how we care for patients, both in acute care settings like inpatient units and partial hospital programs. Across the spectrum of care, virtual care continues to impact patients’ lives in ways that those of us in behavioral health care can really see.

If you’d like to learn more about how Iris Telehealth can integrate virtual behavioral health programs into your hospital or health system, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can contact us here or check out this page to learn more about Scheduled Services.

How Integrating Scheduled Services Benefits Inpatient Care

Depressive disorder is the most common cause of hospitalization among patients under age 18. However, the shortage of behavioral health providers in this setting makes meeting patients with timely care challenging.

A study from the Mayo Clinic found that, of 2,300 U.S. hospitals surveyed, 54% had no psychiatrist on staff or available for medical ED or inpatient consultations. When admissions for active psychiatric patients were needed, 59% of hospitals transferred them to another hospital – creating leakage within the health system.

For patients who stay within the hospital system and need care over 30 days, Beckers Healthcare highlights that it can create additional healthcare costs of $2,265 per stay. 

However, effective and efficient behavioral health integration can help decrease costs and improve patient experience. In their annual Environmental Scan, the American Hospital Association (AHA), shares that an inpatient integrated behavioral health model resulted in a 159% return on investment, and a study of six primary care practices found integration reduced ED visits by 14.2%. 

Integrating virtual care partnerships to support inpatient psychiatric units offers a simple solution to a complicated problem and helps keep patients from falling through care gaps. By bringing in a virtual behavioral health provider, patients can get the care they need, health systems can avoid leakage, and provider time can be used more effectively.

Integrating virtual care into the inpatient psychiatric unit

Making virtual care available in your inpatient psychiatric unit, your health system can alleviate staffing challenges, transform the patient and provider experience, and assist their on-site providers with behavioral health clinicians.

Teams are connected with a dedicated provider who serves the hospital on a consistent basis each week.

Virtual behavioral health care allows organizations to recruit from a larger pool of providers than they might not otherwise have access to in their geographic region. This capability allows patients to get the quality care they need for complex behavioral health conditions.

We call our virtual solution for this Scheduled Services, which ensures access to high-quality behavioral health providers who are dedicated to our partner healthcare organizations on a consistent schedule and are matched to the needs of their communities and care teams. This approach creates continuity of care for patients with complex behavioral health conditions. Additionally, virtual behavioral health providers have flexibility and can provide the same consistency that an on-site provider can and doesn’t position patients to have to repeatedly tell their stories.

Virtual behavioral health providers can round virtually and work weekends and nights – whenever care is needed. This flexibility also enables care team integration and allows providers to attend team meetings and be available to other clinicians just as they would if they were in-person. Virtual providers can collaborate, join team huddles, and consult with their team.

The benefits of a virtual provider solution  

Virtual behavioral health solutions help patients get seen more quickly, reduce expenses, and help promote quality care for patients who might otherwise be left waiting for treatment or end up back in the emergency department.

When determining who to partner with for a virtual behavioral health solution, it’s important to consider what other supports come along with the addition of a provider.

At Iris Telehealth, we pride ourselves on the support we provide to our partners to make sure they’re matched with a provider who has the right skillset and knowledge to treat the level of acuity they see within their inpatient units. We also provide clinical alignment executives who support and serve as a primary point of contact for our partners.

These pillars of support also extend to help with licensing and credentialing as well as quality management services to ensure our providers are helping organizations meet their key behavioral health goals.

Treating behavioral health patients in the inpatient unit is no easy task, but we do our best to support each organization so they can experience the benefits of a virtual behavioral health solution.

How virtual behavioral health enables continuity of care

When a patient can’t get the care they need, when they need it, they may end up leaving the health system and going somewhere else for care. This potential for leakage is costly and creates a poor experience for patients.

When a health system has a behavioral health specialist readily available, the patient’s chance of being seen quickly increases. They receive proper evaluation and lessen their risk of their symptoms becoming exacerbated.

Additionally, in-person care may not meet demand in the same way a virtual solution can. There are several barriers an in-person provider may encounter versus someone working virtually. For example, while weather or traffic could keep a provider from making it into the unit, a virtual provider has consistent flexibility that supports a consistent schedule.

Patients may need to be seen again and having a provider they know, trust, and can count on, can make all the difference in their care. Helping provide care to patients that’s high-quality and specialized can help them experience better outcomes and build trust with your organization.

How to get started with Scheduled Services

At Iris, we’re proud of the level of care we provide to patients. That’s why we have a 97% average patient satisfaction rate and a 92% partner retention rate. Additionally, our commitment to quality has helped us gain Joint Commission accreditation. We’ve treated 2.3M+ patients and counting and we’re eager to see how we can help those in your community get the behavioral health care they need and deserve.

If you’d like to learn more about how Scheduled Services can be integrated into your health system, don’t hesitate to reach out today. Contact us here for more information.