Why (and When) You Should Consider a Virtual Medical Director

Striking the right balance between prioritizing quality patient care and managing everyday leadership tasks is pivotal for healthcare organizations. But it’s not always easy. Hospitals and clinics have safety and quality metrics they must report on, and sometimes it’s unclear who’s responsible and whether they have the training and skills to do that type of work.

During my years at Iris, I’ve seen many clinics promote staff members into leadership positions based on seniority rather than on that person having experience in leadership or administration. That’s where leveraging an Iris provider as a virtual medical director for a behavioral health program can be a great move.

Our providers are integrated into the organizations in which they see patients. They know the staff, the patients, and the clinical challenges that the organization faces, but they can also be involved in higher-level discussions and the administrative decision-making and leadership required for clinics to maintain safety and quality reporting.

In this article, I’ll share some of my insights into how leveraging a virtual medical director works, the benefits they can bring to an organization, and how on-site teams can build trust with a virtual medical director.

How leveraging a virtual medical director works

In many places across the country, our providers serve as virtual medical directors as well as behavioral health providers. Generally, the hours are divided so the providers and staff can know which hat is being worn when.

For example, we carve out administrative time with regular meeting cadences to meet with staff and go over things like policy reviews, safety incidences, and quality metrics – and perform supervisory services when needed. That provider will also have clinical hours where they deliver psychiatric services to patients through regular appointments.

It’s important to delineate how the provider uses their hours each day to prevent confusion. There are always a lot of patients to see, so the medical director may not have the time to do the administrative work if it’s not scheduled. Setting goals, having a solid job description and expectations, and protecting time for weekly administrative and leadership meetings are essential to success in the medical director’s role.

How to build trust between an on-site staff and virtual medical director

The way humans interact is really changing. While the gold standard in healthcare has been in-person care, on-site behavioral health services aren’t always available — this became painfully apparent during the pandemic. Not only did clinics and hospitals need more providers to serve the surge of patients seeking behavioral healthcare, they needed new leadership models and staffing structures.

Telemedicine enabled us to serve so many clinics and hospitals around the country, but coming out of the pandemic, we also knew that being an organization that clinics and hospitals could trust to do virtual care well was important. We were able to demonstrate that finding a virtual behavioral health provider who can be a leader and who truly cares about your community and your clinic helps build that trust – even if they’re three or four states away.

At Iris, we’ve found the key to building that trust is open, honest, and transparent communication — it’s at the core of everything we do. We get to know the on-site team members on a first-name basis and become comfortable with each other clinically, professionally, and personally. Our goal is for our virtual behavioral health providers to be as accessible as any on-site provider might be — that’s one of the ways to build trust.

As a provider, I’ve also found making yourself available online, just as you would in person, is helpful for building trust and engagement with an on-site team.

For example, leaving your office door cracked is the universal sign that you’re available to staff when you’re not with a patient. With virtual care, leaving your video on between patients or meetings allows staff to virtually pop in and say “hi” or ask a question related to patient care. So even if you’re on a screen, the on-site staff feel like you’re present. That’s the quality and integrity of the interactions we strive for at Iris.

How to set your virtual medical director up for success

Setting up your medical director for success involves developing clear goals and objectives as well as clear boundaries.

A few questions we’ve found helpful to ask in this process are:

  • How many hours will your medical director need for the administrative function?
  • Who held this role before? What were their challenges? Why did they leave?
  • What are the expectations of this role?
  • What meetings, supervision, and oversight are required in this role?
  • What would success in this role look like to your team?

We’ve helped many organizations develop job descriptions to help them answer these questions as they pertain to their unique clinical workflow and staffing matrix.

For example, a remote medical director might be responsible for working with the Chief Financial Officer or operations team. They might need to put together presentations to demonstrate the safety and quality initiatives your organization is tracking and how your organization responds to – and measures the success of – new initiatives.

Additionally, there are financial metrics, quality reports, coding, and all sorts of things a virtual medical director is regularly reviewing.

Breaking down the responsibilities of a virtual medical director

A medical director’s role is really focused on directing the clinical delivery of care and the quality, safety, and integrity of that care so patients get the help they need and providers get the support they need. This can be done through virtual leadership just as easily as through traditional on-site leadership.

In my experience, supporting teams of providers – including doctors, nurse practitioners, nurses, and therapists –is very meaningful whether it is done in person or virtually.

Medical directors can be a sounding board for providers to bounce ideas off of as well as a resource for dealing with challenging clinical cases. Behavioral health patients can have high levels of acuity and sometimes have needs that providers can’t meet, so supporting colleagues and staff in their efforts to deal with dissatisfied patients can be very helpful.

Again, such support can be offered virtually by a medical director just as it might be done in person.

Where Iris Telehealth fits in

By working with a virtual care provider like Iris, your organization has a larger pool of providers to draw from. Whether you have a small office or a large clinic that needs help finding a medical director, we can help you find one that your staff and patients will enjoy working with.

If you’d like to learn more about our experience matching organizations with a virtual medical director, be sure to read through our case study from Chesapeake Integrated Behavioral Healthcare in Virginia. You can read the full piece here.

If you‘d like to talk to someone about potentially hiring a medical director, be sure to contact us today. We’d be happy to talk through the process and learn more about your needs.

Dr. Tom Milam manages our team of clinicians and guides them in telemedicine and industry best practices. He received his undergraduate degree from WVU in Anthropology, graduating summa cum laude, and received his M.D. from the University of Virginia. His residency training in psychiatry took place at Duke and UVA. Dr. Milam has served in a leadership role throughout his psychiatric career and spearheaded the telepsychiatry initiative at his previous hospital.

How to Track Quality Improvement in Behavioral Health Care

Quality management is paramount to making sure you stay on track with your behavioral health goals.

Let’s take a look at how to define quality management, the benefits of quality management, and quality initiatives your organization can put into action.

The importance of quality improvement in behavioral health

Ensuring your patients get the quality care they need by assessing the impact of your behavioral health programming is essential. 

Here’s what Iris Telehealth’s Executive Director of Quality, RN, MS, CPHQ, had to say about the importance of having a quality management strategy in place:



“We cannot know for sure if we’re impacting patient outcomes without measuring them. We can think we’re doing a good job (or not), and we can look at the qualitative evidence, which is important and should not be discounted. But, without some quantitative measurement or goal in mind, we cannot be certain of whether we’re making meaningful improvement.
That’s where having a quality management strategy comes into play. It forces organizations to think about what excellent care looks like to identify opportunities to improve, take action, and, most importantly, effect meaningful change.”
Yara Nielsenshultz, RN, MS, CPHQ, Executive Director of Quality

 

Focusing on quality improvement initiatives are critical to treatment outcomes, efficiency, patient safety, and timely care. By tracking and knowing with certainty how your behavioral health programs are performing, you can be sure that your patients are getting the best care possible.

To get more of our expertise, download our guide on the impact of quality management in healthcare.

Seven healthcare quality measures your organization can track

In behavioral health, objective measurement of treatment effectiveness can be challenging.

However, determining specific performance measures and goals and then gathering data on those measures provides meaningful, actionable information. This information is critical to identifying opportunities to improve and track the effectiveness of any initiatives or changes you implement over time.

Here are seven healthcare quality measures your organization can track to ensure your behavioral health program is operating as smoothly as possible:  

  1. Wait time: Monitoring this metric helps avoid waste (time, resources, or equipment), and provides promptness of services (reducing wait times, eliminating discharge delays, etc.)
  2. No-shows: Monitoring and improving no-show rates supports consistency, which may improve patient outcomes and access to care while also optimizing provider time
  3. Performing validated screening: Using validated screening tools, such as PHQ-9, GAD-7, or C-SSRS, provides measurable data to help monitor the impact of healthcare services or interventions on the health status of patients.
  4. Safety events; suicide: It’s critical to monitor safety events, such as treatment errors or suicide, so your team can prevent and reduce errors and protect patients
  5. Timely response to patients: Tracking and optimizing response times ensures services are respectful and responsive to patient’s needs while providing the same high level of care to everyone
  6. Patient Reported Outcomes (PROMs): Tracking patient-reported outcomes provides measurable data on patients’ perception of treatment effectiveness, which complements patient satisfaction and can inform quality improvement activities
  7. Patient satisfaction: Implementing surveys or measures to understand patient satisfaction delivers key insights into perceptions of the care patients receive

Tracking these measures is essential for improving the quality and monitoring of your behavioral health program. However, doing it alone can be overwhelming. That’s why having a partner who can help you track these metrics and work to improve upon them is key.

The keys to quality improvement in healthcare

At Iris, we collaborate with partners to optimize their behavioral health programs and maximize their benefits. That means we collaborate and exchange data, aggregate and report information, and help their team improve upon identified quality improvement metrics.

From our experience, these are the three pillars we’ve found that make a successful quality management solution:

  1. Ongoing monitoring: Meeting quality measures means keeping track of key metrics through ongoing monitoring. By leveraging a partner who effectively monitors quality measures, you’re better positioned to meet performance standards and stay on top of accreditation, certification, and regulatory requirements.
  1. Regular communication: To help stay on top of key metrics, regular touch bases to analyze quality metrics and compare how your performance tracks against target goals are essential. In addition to frequent touch points, at Iris, we deliver easily understandable visualizations, identify trends, and look for opportunities for improvement.
  1. Customized reports: Access to customized reports can help your team know how your organization is tracking. At Iris, we interpret data in an easy-to-understand way that helps provide guidance and recommendations for the best next steps for your organization to meet quality improvement initiatives. We help monitor, evaluate, and improve on selected quality measures like patient outcomes, patient satisfaction, efficiency, and resource utilization.   

Partnering with an organization that provides quality management alongside their behavioral health programs offers many benefits, including adding additional resources to support your organization’s quality initiatives, supporting positive patient outcomes, and helping meet accreditation, certification, and regulatory requirements.

Where Iris Telehealth fits in

At Iris, we’ve helped our partners reduce the length of stay in their MedSurg units by 0.5 days, increased ED discharge rates from 55% to 62%, and reduced their length of stay in the ED from 12 to 9 hours.

Additionally, as a Joint Commission-accredited medical group, we have the expertise to help organizations monitor and address gaps to meet required standards and quality measures. We’ve also helped partners track no-show rates and helped compare provider performance to uncover best practices that were then replicated and implemented across care teams.

To learn more about how you can improve quality initiatives at your organization, contact our downloadable, The Impact of Quality Management in Healthcare. Or, if you’d like to talk to someone to learn how we can help jumpstart your quality initiatives or behavioral health program, contact us today.

How Telehealth Supports Work-Life Balance for Clinicians

Work-life balance is essential in the behavioral health industry. In this blog, we’ll review the impact of clinician burnout, how telehealth helps support work-life balance, and what a day-in-the life of a virtual behavioral health provider looks like.

The impact of provider burnout

Provider burnout impacts well-being and makes it harder for providers to access the work-life balance they need. In a 2023 report, The Physicians Foundation outlines the following data points related to the current and future state of physician well-being:

  • Six in 10 physicians often have feelings of burnout
  • Only 31% of physicians believe their workplace culture prioritizes their well-being
  • Half of physicians surveyed believed insurance requirements, documentation protocols, regulatory policies, and mandatory training requirements hindered their ability to provide quality, cost efficient care

In this climate, how can providers know if an organization values work-life balance and helps ensure providers have the support they need to succeed? Let’s take a look at the keys to finding the right organizational fit.

The key to finding the right organizational fit

In a study published in the National Library of Medicine, researchers discovered that 42% of primary care providers and psychiatrists considered their profession a true calling. Moreover, among those who experienced a stronger sense of calling, 31% reported a reduced level of burnout.

At Iris, we’ve found the following aspects as key components that set the stage for a healthy work-life balance and allows you to focus on what you do best:

Job matching: Finding the right organization to work for is essential to helping ensure work-life balance. That’s why, at Iris, we vet our partners to ensure they’ll be the best fit for our providers. We also take things like our provider’s desired schedule and the ideal population they’d like to work with into consideration. We focus on culture and values to find the best match possible.

“A really unique part of Iris’s approach is the job matching process. Iris holds a meet and greet with the Clinical Operations Manager, the provider, and the clinic. Everyone meets and discovers whether or not they’ll be a good fit. I couldn’t be happier with where they placed me.”
– Dale McQueeney, MS, RN, PMHNP-BC

Top-notch support: Working in a virtual environment comes with its own challenges. Thankfully, with the right organization by your side, these potential setbacks are minimized. At Iris, we have several teams in place to advocate for our providers and make sure they always have someone to call. From our Clinical Operations Managers to our IT team, you can focus on patient care without having to worry about all of the little things that might get in the way.

“One of the things I love about working with Iris is the support. For example, Drew Sadler, the Clinician Operations Manager, has provided amazing support and the IT team is always ready to help.”
– Nicole Bradbury, LCSW

Licensing and credentialing: Managing licensing and credentialing can be a tedious process. In fact, The Physicians Foundation study found that 80% of physicians found a reduction of administrative burdens helpful to their well-being. At Iris, our Medical Staff Services team monitors our provider’s files daily to ensure their licensing and credentialing are on track and renew current providers’ licenses as needed.

Click here to learn more about the work our MSS team does to help ensure ease for our providers.

A day in the life of a telehealth provider

Telehealth helps support essential components of work-life balance, including no commute times, flexible hours, and the ability to transition from your work into your life easier.

Here are a few ways telehealth providers at Iris have felt the positive impacts of telehealth work:

“It’s not only about the part-time job but also the fact that I don’t have to commute. I live in a very rural place in the mountains, so I can walk on my break after lunch, or if I have a no-show or finish on time with a patient, I can take a break and go for a walk and come back. That wouldn’t have happened in my prior job. I value that a lot. It makes a big difference.”
– Dr. Carissa Cabán-Alemán

“I just completed four years with Iris. I really enjoy having all this flexibility and ability to spend time with family and get everything I need to get done during my day and still work an eight-hour shift. That is definitely a good thing.”
– Dr. Manoela Denman

“It’s tremendously easier managing work-life balance from home because my commute is really short, and it’s incredible how much time and money goes into working at a distant site from your home.”
– Dennis Dodd, PMHNP

If you’d like to learn more about what life as a telehealth provider looks like, be sure to get your copy of our downloadable here.

Where Iris Telehealth fits in

Whether you’re a psychiatrist, psychiatric nurse practitioner, or a therapist, work-life balance is a key component to your job satisfaction. At Iris, we recognize and work to support your well-being at every step of your journey. If you’d like to learn more about life at Iris, feel free to contact us today.

You can also stay-up-to date on combating burnout, news from the behavioral health industry, and insights into telehealth career opportunities and resources by signing up for our Behavioral Health Messenger newsletter – get all the info and subscribe here.

Diagnosing, Treating, and Supporting Children Experiencing Pediatric Depression

The past year has been an enormous mental health challenge for children and adolescents. Research in Child Adolescent Health indicated the global closures of schools and colleges due to the COVID-19 pandemic have negatively impacted over 91% of the world’s student population. Children found their levels of boredom increasing and motivation decreasing as schedules were upended, soccer practices were canceled, and school lunches went virtual.

With these lifestyle interruptions came an alarming increase in rates of pediatric depression.

I’ve seen the challenges pediatricians are facing firsthand and hope to provide some insight into what these new pediatric mental health challenges entail, how mental health professionals can screen for depression in primary care, and strategies for treating pediatric depression.

Research indicates pediatric depression is increasing

The percentage of children and adolescents exhibiting health risk behaviors — including suicidal ideation, making a suicide plan, attempted suicide, and suicide attempts requiring medical treatment — have increased significantly since 2011 and have accelerated with the pandemic. A survey of 1000 high school and college students indicated that almost 25% knew a peer who had developed suicidal thoughts since the onset of COVID-19. And, more than 50% of respondents in a survey of high school and college students reported they were worried about their own mental health during the pandemic.

These statistics are generally elevated for any children who identify as members of marginalized communities, with LGBTQ+ youth reporting health risk behaviors at the highest rate.

Unfortunately, the concerning increase in rates of pediatric depression will not simply go away as vaccines become available. A systemic review of 63 studies found that a surprising impact of social isolation and loneliness was prolonged risk of depression and anxiety up to nine years later. Additionally, the duration of loneliness was more strongly associated with mental health symptoms than the intensity of loneliness. Even as we climb out of the quarantine period and the COVID-19 pandemic, we should expect this prolonged trauma period to affect pediatric mental health for years to come.

Screening for pediatric depression is quick, free, and easy

The DSM-5 contains information about the full spectrum of common depressive disorders in children. But, one of the most common disorders you might run into is Major Depressive Disorder (MDD).

To screen for MDD, you can provide questionnaires specific to both parents and children at general visits and interpret their responses. You’ll find patients with MDD report depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in addition to five or more Major Depressive Disorder symptoms within the same two-week period.

You can use the patient’s age to determine which screening is most fitting between the Pediatric Symptom Checklist/Pediatric Symptom Checklist Youth Report (PSC and Y-PSC) and the Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9). Here’s how they compare:

PSC/Y-PSC

  • Screens for cognitive, emotional, and behavioral problems
  • For youth between 4-16
  • Takes 5-10 minutes to complete
  • Free

PHQ-9

  • Specific to depression
  • For ages 12 and up
  • Takes 5-10 minutes to complete
  • Free

After children take either screening questionnaire, staff will score the questionnaire responses and determine whether MDD possibility is positive or negative. Of course, you should also conduct a formal assessment — including a clinical interview and symptoms rating scales — before moving forward with MDD treatment.

The patient and family-first approach to treating Major Depressive Disorder

The severity of a patient’s MDD diagnosis will direct the treatment plan:

  • Treating subclinical to mild depression includes supported self-management and follow-up conversations to help the children understand how they can make themselves feel better – including how sleep and nutrition can affect their depression.
  • Treating moderate depression (and mild depression that does not respond to supported self-management) includes therapy referral and an optional medication trial.
  • Treating severe depression requires a therapy referral and medication.

While some families may be hesitant about one method or the other, studies indicate that a combination of therapy and medication trials will help children with severe depression improve faster.

However, as a pediatric mental health provider, it’s important to remember how scary these conversations can be for families and set clear expectations for what families and patients can anticipate throughout the treatment process.

Steps for setting family expectations include:

  • Screening for family history of Bipolar Disorder and suicide.
  • Communication plans for both regular follow-up and emergency access visits.
  • Family education about the length of adequate trials to reduce the risk of non-compliance.
  • Emphasizing that the family should alert pediatricians about worsening depression or suicidal thoughts.
  • Explanation of mania to set family expectations for this common side effect of MDD medication.
  • Ongoing informed consent to continue educating families and improve treatment outcomes.

SSRIs: the gold standard

As far as medication is concerned, SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors) are the gold standard of care for pediatric depression. 70% of patients respond to their first SSRI, and of the patients who do not respond, 70% respond to the second SSRI.

Generally speaking, Fluoxetine, Escitalopram, and Sertraline are the most common SSRIs, with Fluoxetine being the oldest and most well-known SSRI. Whenever you’re treating a new patient or prescribing an SSRI to a child who has never taken one before, you should always conduct test doses first to understand how patients will respond to specific medications. Then, it’s important to make sure any resulting SSRI treatment plan you develop includes periodic monitoring for side effects and reassessment of patients using screening tools at recommended times throughout the treatment plan.

Next steps: resources for mental health professionals and families

Every patient and family has different needs, but, fortunately, there’s a wealth of knowledge and research around pediatric depression that can help you make the right choices for your patients.

Whether you’re looking for aacap practice parameters or pediatric depression screening tools, here are just a few of my favorite resources for providers and families:

  • aacap.org and aap.org include practice parameters, with a lot of facts for families — including brief summaries explaining what to expect from pediatric mental health treatments.
  • parentsmedguide.org is a collaborative effort by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychiatric Association. These sites share practical information and advice regarding pediatric depression and anxiety for parents, patients, and clinicians.
  • schoolpsychiatry.org is a publication by Mass General and provides valuable screening tools.

As always, Iris Telehealth is here as a resource for providers who need support. If your organization is feeling the weight of increased numbers of patients experiencing pediatric depression, contact us today. We’d love to talk to you about the difference telepsychiatry can make in your practice!

CCBHC Criteria and How to Find Success as a Certified Community Behavioral Health Center

Certified Community Behavioral Health Centers (CCBHC) are specially designated clinics offering comprehensive services to treat mental health and substance use disorders. Organizations must apply for designation and adhere to extensive CCBHC certification criteria, ultimately allowing them to focus on target populations, increase access to care, and offer a broader range of services.

In a webinar hosted by Iris Telehealth, leaders from Pines Behavioral Health, HealthRIGHT 360, and Deschutes County Mental Health came together to discuss their journeys to gaining CCBHC certification, their advice on the certification process, and insights into virtual care.

In this blog, we’ll review insights from these organizations on the challenges and benefits of becoming a CCBHC and learn how they’ve found success.

First steps and goals when considering CCBHC certification

Deciding to become a CCBHC comes with many considerations, and knowing the first steps and getting clear on goals can be helpful to the process. For example, at HealthRIGHT 360, they applied via SAMHSA’s CCBHC expansion grant opportunity.

When reflecting on their goal for gaining CCBHC certification, Melissa Espinoza, the CCBHC Program Director at HealthRIGHT 360, said, “We wanted to enhance our longstanding outpatient behavioral health programs in LA County and potentially to replicate this throughout other sites within the agency and organization.”

For Chandra Mola, the Medical Team Manager at Deschutes County Mental Health, their goal was to create a more integrated, whole-person approach to care and extend outreach into their rural communities.

On their certification, Mola said, “We were certified in 2017. We had a small integrated primary care office and had kind of a one-stop shop and saw the benefits of having that whole-person care collaboration and improvements with overall health. One of the driving pieces was being able to expand to our more rural locations and offer that at all of our sites. Then the second piece was just a plan to diversify our funding.”

Whether you want to enhance your existing behavioral health services or reach more people in your community, CCBHC certification can help support your efforts. While it’s essential to get clear on your goals, it’s also important to consider any potential challenges and the right strategies you might need to meet these head-on.

Potential challenges and strategies to CCBHC certification

Gaining designation can be rigorous, and there can be a lot of CCBHC criteria to consider when preparing your organization for the process.

Here are a few challenges CCBHCs encountered when first getting started:

  • Administrative challenges: At Deschutes County Mental Health, Mola said, “SAMHSA grants are daunting. They’re big. It’s certainly just being able to deal with the administrative burden it puts on every aspect of our departments. The opening up to broader groups of people offered it to people who had private health insurance. Things like just setting up the billing departments to be able to bill for all of that.”
  • Staff turnover: For HealthRIGHT 360, Espinoza said they struggled to get their team on board and encountered staffing challenges. “There were a lot of long-term staff that felt they didn’t wanna be a part of this, it was too much extra. And so staffing was a struggle that we had to overcome.” Today, HealthRIGHT 360 is stabilizing and has learned a lot from its first round of funding. Espinoza said the organization worked hard to re-obtain churned staff and obtain new staff by enhancing and strengthening their benefits packages.
  • Increased demand: For Pines Behavioral Health, Sue Germann, Chief Executive Officer, highlighted that it wasn’t the certification process that proved challenging, but the demand for services, which increased by 36% after their designation, citing, “Every service we provided had a greater need – including psychiatric. We connected with Iris right away with a virtual psychiatrist, which was invaluable.”

While these are certainly challenging, there are many benefits as well. Let’s take a look at the positive outcomes these organizations have encountered since their designation.

The benefits of CCBHC certification

While the upfront designation process may be tedious, according to our partners, the benefits of CCBHC certification are all worth it. At Pines Behavioral Health, Germann said their team was finally able to meet the wants of their community that aren’t necessarily Medicaid allowable.

After gaining designation, they were able to get more creative with what they offered. Speaking about the benefits of their designation, Germann said, “We created a health and wellness program where you didn’t have to come in and have an assessment and a treatment plan before you could have the service. You could come in and learn how physical health impacts mental health.”

She also mentioned the help they received with their 24/7 crisis team, noting, “We went from scheduling intakes to same-day access. We really made sure that we had enough staff to be able to meet that need. That helped us in terms of being able to meet the measures related to how quickly you needed to see someone.”

At HealthRIGHT 360, Espinoza and her team value the ability to help more people in their community and the flexibility the grant has given them.

Espinoza shares, “It has allowed us to assess and address the needs of our population in ways that we were not able to before. One of the initial CCBHC requirements is a community needs assessment. So, instead of taking long-established services and fitting clients into those boxes, we can really survey and obtain feedback from clients about their individual needs through their experiences and feedback. So that has been really important.”

At Deschutes County Mental Health, Mola pointed out the positive outcomes they’ve experienced, noting, “The benefits have been overall improved health outcomes. We’ve seen decreases in blood pressure, we’ve seen better managed A1C. BMI is still a tricky one, but we have seen a little bit of improvement there. So that whole-person care has driven us to decide to adopt this model permanently.”

The integration of the CCBHC model and virtual care

CCBHCs can benefit significantly from a strategic virtual behavioral health partnership. Through high-quality support, evidence-based care, and a team of highly qualified behavioral health providers, this partnership is one of the keys to finding success as a CCBHC.

Want to learn more about how the right telehealth partner can help support your CCBHC’s approach to evidence-based care? Check out our blog, How Telehealth Can Support CCBHC Quality Measures through Evidence-Based Care.

Reflecting on their organization’s approach to virtual care and partnership with Iris Telehealth, Espinoza said, “Virtual care has not gone away. That is a part of our long-term strategy. We do know some clients prefer and benefit from in-person services, but there are also clients who really do value the flexibility in their schedules to be able to participate in treatment through that platform as well.

Currently, in our CCBHC, we are offering a hybrid model of service delivery for our staff. It allows them the flexibility, and it allows the client’s flexibility to continue with treatment through our agency.”

For Deschutes County Mental Health, Chandra Mola says telehealth has been crucial to them during the provider shortage, stating, “Due to staffing shortages of psychiatrists and psych NPs, telehealth has been really important for us to have that balance. But even beyond that, as we’ve been able to hire more psychiatrists these last few years, it’s been a good thing to have a balance of in-person and telehealth. Particularly in our rural areas, because oftentimes they don’t have the means to get to clinics.”

Mola also noted how specific quality measures have improved at Deschutes, “We’ve noticed that our no-show rates improve when we have this option available. Ultimately our folks are getting service that is accessible to them and means that we can serve more people and do a better job.”

We want to thank the incredible leaders from Pines Behavioral Health, HealthRIGHT 360, and Deschutes County Mental Health for taking the time to share their valuable insights. We couldn’t be more proud to partner with you and work together to create a better world through healthy minds. Click here to watch the full webinar.

If you’d like to learn more about how Iris Telehealth can help assist your organization throughout the certification and beyond, contact us today!

How Mental Health Providers Can Combat Compassion Fatigue

Quick links
Symptoms of compassion fatigue
How telehealth helps mental health providers combat compassion fatigue
Self-care tips for providers facing compassion fatigue
Compassion fatigue during the holidays
Where Iris Telehealth fits in

As a behavioral health provider, you’re on the front lines of America’s mental health crisis. But prioritizing self-care isn’t always easy, and working in mental health care can make you vulnerable to things like compassion fatigue.

So, what is compassion fatigue? Compassion fatigue can increase emotional intensity, decrease cognitive ability, and create a chronic activation of your stress response. Compassion fatigue can also contribute to provider burnout.

Fortunately, there are ways to prevent compassion fatigue and recognize signs early.

Symptoms of compassion fatigue

Developing compassion fatigue can create cognitive dissonance, causing you to do and say things that don’t align with your values. If you’ve experienced disconnection like this, it’s important to recognize that these behaviors aren’t coming from a place of malice – it might just mean you’re dysregulated.

Here are a few emotional and physical signs you might be experiencing compassion fatigue:

  • Isolation: If you’re experiencing compassion fatigue, you might find yourself pulling back from people who don’t work in the same field because they may not understand your experience.
  • Physical exhaustion: When you walk out of a psychiatric unit, do you feel like you have debilitating fatigue? This feeling might be compassion fatigue. On the physical side, you might also experience sleep and appetite disturbances.
  • On-the-job challenges: Working with behavioral health patients requires emotional regulation. Compassion fatigue can increase emotional intensity and decrease cognitive ability.

To view a complete list of compassion fatigue symptoms, visit The American Institute of Stress’s website for more information.

If these symptoms sound like something you’re experiencing, you’re not alone. Thankfully, there are actions and solutions that can make your ability to do what you love easier.

How telehealth helps mental health providers combat compassion fatigue

One of the ways compassion fatigue can happen is by absorbing trauma, or experiencing what’s called secondary trauma. For example, as a provider, you may have one person come in and tell you stories about hard things they have experienced, they leave, and then the next person comes in and tells you their difficult stories. In turn, you may be absorbing this trauma.

Fortunately, virtual care modalities like telepsychiatry and teletherapy can help.

Here are a few benefits of remote behavioral health work:

  • A barrier to stress: The computer screen facilitates a bit of protection that allows providers to create more distance between themselves and their work. The screen provides a barrier allowing providers to make more informed choices from logic, rather than from emotion.
  • Safe, comfortable environment: Because you’re in your own home and space, you have more control over how you’re spending your time in between clients or after your appointments. Those regular on-site stressors are removed from your daily life and you’re in your safe space. However, it’s also important to be mindful of any stressors you might pull into your space. Taking a mindful approach when transitioning from work to life is essential.
  • No more commutes: When you don’t have to worry about an extensive commute, you can spend more time doing what you love. Working from home makes transitions into your personal life easier and creates more opportunity to relax, take meaningful breaks, and keep a more manageable pace in your day-to-day life.
  • Top notch support: At Iris Telehealth, we help ensure our providers have everything they need to thrive, not only in their work lives, but in their personal lives, too. That’s why we encourage our clinicians to take breaks throughout the day, provide a generous PTO policy, and ensure they get matched with an organization that aligns with their needs and values.

Want to learn more about life as a remote provider? Check out our Clinician Corner series to hear first-hand experiences from Iris’s own behavioral health clinicians.

Self-care tips for providers facing compassion fatigue

We’ve seen first-hand how compassion fatigue can lead to burnout in mental health professionals. What are you doing to help yourself get back to your baseline after you sign off for the day?

Here are our top four actions you can take to prioritize self-care:

  1. Practice mindfulness: Exercises like meditation, mindful walking, and gratitude can play a big role in helping you steer clear of compassion fatigue. You can also try setting aside dedicated time for deep breathing. For example, when your computer is booting up in the morning, let this process act as a queue to take four deep breaths. This technique can help you re-center yourself and prepare for the day.
  2. Get active and eat well: Find a way to move your body every day – whether that’s a five minute walk, an hour long workout, or more mini breaks throughout your day. It’s also important to make sure you get outside for at least five minutes every day and fuel your body with things you know are going to help you feel better, like eating a balanced diet.
  3. Seek out support: Having a community to lean on is essential to your well-being. This strategy can be met by joining a support group or talking with a person in your life who understands what you’re experiencing and can empathize and sympathize with you. Investing in therapy is also a good option for providers in the mental health space.
  4. Delegate responsibility: You don’t have to take on the world alone. Delegating responsibility and finding people you can ask to help is key. For example, is there someone who can help out with housekeeping? Or, someone who can help out with school pick-up? Figuring out where you can pull in help can be a game changer.

Compassion fatigue during the holidays

Compassion fatigue doesn’t take a break during the holidays, but it does provide a good opportunity to check-in. Here are a few things to keep in mind as we approach the holidays season.

As we head into the holiday season, ask yourself the following questions:

  • Are you using your break to look for a new job?
  • Are you finding it difficult to meaningfully connect with loved ones?
  • Do you have a lack of desire to do what you love?
  • Are you overindulging in things like alcohol or food? These can be used to mask what you’re actually feeling.
  • Are you using your time off to sleep instead of doing things you love?

If you answered “yes” to most of the questions above, you might be experiencing compassion fatigue. If this sounds like you, consider the following:

  • Create a plan to completely turn off during the holidays, and create a separation between yourself and your work
  • Create a plan to reset – close your computer down and move your chair away from your desk, or close the door on your office to create separation for yourself
  • Do something that brings you joy and find a way to connect with someone else
    Say no and set boundaries
  • Download the Calm app, check out online workout videos like Yoga with Adrienne, or try out some new mindfulness techniques from Positive Psychology

Where Iris Telehealth fits in

At Iris, we believe our providers should be applauded and celebrated for their work. That’s why we help ensure they have what they need to succeed – less paperwork, a low-stress environment, and great benefits. Want to learn more about what life at Iris looks like? Contact us today! We have opportunities available now for psychiatrists, PMHNPs, and LCSWs.

How to Know if Virtual Care is Right for Your Health System

Telepsychiatry is a great way to improve access to care for your patients, but how do you know if it would be a good fit for your health system? Before you make a decision, there are several components you should consider, like what care models would be most beneficial for your organization, how to ensure the right provider fit, and what to look for in a behavioral health partner.

If you’re looking to integrate a virtual behavioral health solution into your organization, keep reading to learn what you need to know to make an informed decision.

Key considerations for your telepsychiatry program

While jump-starting a telepsychiatry program might seem intimidating, it’s easier than you might think. Often, an organization’s hesitation comes from not knowing how telepsychiatry will fit into their current systems or workflows. However, this virtual solution has three components that can help deepen understanding.

Virtual care mirrors on-site care: Fortunately, a good virtual care solution reflects on-site patient care in nearly every way — regardless of setting.

Integration is vital: The proper workflows paired with consistent, simple technology can help virtual providers integrate seamlessly into your organization’s care team and systems. At Iris Telehealth, our providers use the same EMR as the on-site staff. This approach reduces disruption in communication between the care team and improves continuity of care for the patient. It also allows the Iris provider to establish and cultivate strong relationships with staff and patients.

Simple and effective technology: Before launching your telepsychiatry program, it’s essential to test out your IT solutions, train staff, and perform dry-runs. Connectivity issues, poor network speeds, and complicated software and hardware often cause disruptions that affect the patient’s experience. That’s where the right partner comes in. For example, at Iris, we help ensure everything is set-up and ready-to-go before appointments begin. The ultimate goal is for the technology to fade into the background during the appointment.

Next, we’ll take a look at the different behavioral health care models that can be delivered via telehealth.

Virtual care services for health systems and hospitals

There are several behavioral health services that can be delivered via telehealth. Here are a few that we make available at Iris Telehealth:

Bridge Care Services: Bridge Care Services provides a clinician-guided, evidence-based navigation assessment that directs patients to the most appropriate next level of care, delivers effective short-term behavioral health care, and facilitates a closed-loop handoff to the optimal longitudinal provider to address the gaps in care across the continuum.

On-Demand Services: On-Demand Services delivers 24/7 behavioral health care to increase throughput in your ED, reduce unnecessary admissions, and limit the revisit rate of behavioral health patients. These services provide access to a multi-disciplinary provider pod that will assess your behavioral health patients and consult with your on-site ED care team to get those patients dispositioned as quickly as possible.

Scheduled Services: This solution delivers access to consistent, high-quality providers dedicated to your health system (including individual hospitals and outpatient clinics) on a consistent schedule each week – ensuring a predictable coverage model for organizations. Investing in Scheduled Services means you have a dedicated provider who integrates with your team and allows your on-site providers to focus on what they do best and work at the top of their licenses.

If you’d like to learn more about these services, download our whitepaper exclusively for hospitals and health systems.

The patient’s perspective on virtual behavioral health care

Technology has become an integral part of our daily lives, and virtual care has become the norm. Studies show that 59% of people would use telehealth for mental healthcare, and by 2029 behavioral health visits are expected to increase by 50%.

Most people are comfortable video chatting to keep in touch with friends and family members. Telemedicine isn’t different from these virtual interactions many of us have daily. But, a successful telehealth interaction involves a provider who excels at connecting with people over the video, a unique skill that not everyone has.

It can also be beneficial to ask your patients what they want directly and use this information to make a decision. Ultimately, the benefits for patients are significant. Telepsychiatry allows patients to get timely, high-quality psychiatric care facilitated by providers who are experts in assessing patient needs. Psychiatric care in a virtual environment helps patients get treated as quickly as possible as opposed to waiting for long hours in a busy waiting room.

How to find the right provider

It’s important to note that not every excellent doctor is a fantastic telehealth provider. In fact, it takes a unique and robust skillset to make a superb telepsychiatry provider. Here are a few things to keep in mind when looking for the right provider fit.

First, telepsychiatrists should be flexible. If something changes in their day to day, they should be comfortable going with the flow. Next, personability is essential for fostering patient comfort and connecting in a virtual environment. Given the nature of remote work, it’s also vital that they’re good communicators. Most importantly, they need to fit into your culture and have a shared belief in your values and mission.

Second, finding the right provider match can be challenging. That’s why it’s essential to work with a partner who can connect you with the right match. At Iris, we have a rigorous vetting process that ensures all our behavioral health providers are top quality and have a track record of providing exceptional care. We call this process, The Iris Match, and it’s our promise to you that we will ensure your Iris provider will meet your organization’s needs, culture, and values.

To learn more about this approach, download our guide, “How to Find the Best Telemental Health Provider for Your Organization.”

The key to identifying the right behavioral health partner

So, what does the right behavioral health partner look like? There are four key components you should check off your list before making a decision to partner with a virtual behavioral health solution.

  1. Do they facilitate provider matching solutions? At Iris, we draw from a large pool of highly vetted clinicians to help ensure organizations are connected to the provider type they need – whether that’s an MD, PMHNP, LCSW, or LPC.
  2. Are they Joint Commission accredited? Since 2019, Iris Telehealth has been certified for the Joint Commission for behavioral health. This accreditation speaks to our commitment to quality care.
  3. Do they offer quality support beyond connecting you to providers? For example, licensing and credentialing, day-to-day support, and help executing behavioral health strategies.
  4. Are they medical group led? We were founded by a child psychiatrist and have an expert group of medical leadership that offers guidance and recommendations to ensure your organization uses your telehealth solution to your best advantage.

If you can check all these off your list, there’s a good chance you’ve found a strategic behavioral health partner who can help you secure long-term success for your organization and patients.

Is telepsychiatry right for you?

Telepsychiatry can work in almost any setting and can be a great solution to improving patient care all while creating more efficient systems for your organization. At Iris Telehealth we make implementing a telepsychiatry solution a seamless process for health systems. If you’d like to learn more, contact us today.

Best Practices to Improve Provider Retention

Provider retention is always top of mind for healthcare organizations – especially during a provider shortage. Thankfully, there are steps you can take to set your organization up for success and retain the incredible providers that join your team. In this blog, we’ll review best practices, tips, and strategies you can implement to help improve employee retention in healthcare.

Challenges organizations face with provider retention

According to data from the Health Resources & Services Administration, 164 million people live in a mental health professional shortage area, and more than 8,000 mental health professionals are needed to meet the demand for care.

Mental health professionals have more flexibility to change jobs because the need for their services is so high. In fact, a new report from Hospital & Healthcare Compensation Service (HCS) surveyed 426 behavioral health facilities and found an average 27% turnover rate across all positions, with a vacancy rate of 14%.

So, what can healthcare organizations do to find providers? And, once they’ve found the right provider, how can they make sure they’re happy long-term? Let’s take a look at a few best practices they can implement at their organization.

Strategies to retain mental health professionals

Helping ensure providers are supported is one of the keys to recruitment and retention in healthcare. This supportive approach can start from the very beginning. For example, it’s essential to provide benefits and compensation aligned with the demands of the community where they live and the cost of living.

Additionally, one of the most significant contributors to attrition in the mental health space is compassion fatigue and burnout. As behavioral health clinicians regularly hear stories of trauma, which can cause secondary trauma for them. So, ensuring your providers are supported and have someone they can talk to can be very beneficial. If your provider is in a virtual environment, helping them connect with onsite or other virtual colleagues is especially helpful.

For instance, leveraging an internal messaging platform, along with regularly scheduled meetings can help support your clinicians and keep them engaged. It’s crucial that clinicians feel included in the day-to-day and that they have a connection to one another.

In addition to these strategies, there are a few tried and true best practices you can implement to help create a positive experience for your providers.

Best practices to improve provider retention

At Iris Telehealth, we’ve found that creating a supportive environment for providers has been key to provider retention.

Here are a few of the best practices we’ve put in place to help secure long-term matches:

  • Thorough clinical recruitment process: From the beginning, our clinical hiring team gets to know our clinicians – their preferences, values, and needs. That way, we can help ensure they find an organization that’s the best fit for them. That also means we get to know our partner organizations very well. Through our clinical recruitment process, called The Iris Match, we work to make the best matches possible, so the provider and the organization they work for are set-up for long-term success.
  • Effective communication: Our clinical operations managers (COMs) at Iris help ensure our providers always have someone to call and know how important they are. This team serves as their advocates, addressing any and all needs a provider may have. At the same time, COMs help our partners ensure their long-term relationship with the provider is successful by helping facilitate effective collaboration and communication.
  • Licensing and credentialing: Another impactful best practice we implement is help with licensing and credentialing. Our medical staff services (MSS) team effectively licenses and credentials all Iris providers and gives providers and partners the most efficient, proactive, and trouble-free experience during onboarding and throughout the relationship. By taking care of this part of the puzzle, providers can focus on doing what they do best – providing quality patient care.
  • Quality benefits: Ensuring our providers have what they need in terms of compensation and benefits is crucial. That’s why we offer our providers the option of a W2 or 1099, whatever fits their lifestyle. We also offer continuing education funds, an office expense account, and a good health insurance plan.

Leveraging these multiple layers of support helps increase provider satisfaction, and ultimately helps increase retention as well. Let’s dive a little deeper into the importance of matching the right clinician with the right healthcare organization.

Finding the right provider match and securing long-term care

Quality matches ensure a long-term fit. That’s why we take making quality matches seriously. Here are a few insights we have implemented into The Iris Match.

  • In every scoping call with an organization, we review technical questions like appointment times, population seen, and diagnoses.
  • We ask what’s unique about your population or what would be essential to know.
  • We ask about desired soft skills, personality, or what the organizations have liked about some of their long-term providers so we can identify similar qualities.

At Iris, we’ve found that it’s not just a matter of a skill fit as much as it’s a will fit. We’re proud to match providers with organizations where they feel aligned and supported.

Where Iris fits in

At Iris, we take retention seriously – from the first interview all the way through the interview. We highly value creating amazing experiences for providers and organizations.

If you’d like to learn more about The Iris Match, or learn if we can help you find a clinician who your patients and providers will love, contact us today.

Telepsychiatry Services in Action: Meet the Medical Staff Services Team!

At Iris, we’re proud to provide high-quality support to healthcare organizations nationwide. This support takes many shapes, from our COMs, who help ensure providers are set up for success, to our CAEs, who help organizations deliver on their behavioral health strategy – our multiple layers of support help improve our partner’s and provider’s experience.

That’s why we’re excited to share another essential component of support we provide – our Medical Staff Services (MSS) team! Keep reading to learn how this team helps ensure all licensing and telehealth credentialing is seamless and efficient for providers and partners.

The mission of the MSS team

If you’re a healthcare organization or a behavioral health provider, you understand all the work that goes into licensing and credentialing. There’s a lot to juggle, whether it’s keeping up with unique licensure requirements, filling out paperwork, or renewing licenses. That’s what makes the MSS team so special – they take care of it all.

The MSS team effectively licenses and credentials all Iris providers and gives providers and partners the most efficient, proactive, and trouble-free experience during onboarding and throughout the relationship.

This team helps ensure our partners and their patients have timely access to high-quality, thoroughly vetted providers who can focus on patient care without administrative burden. Through this team’s expertise in the healthcare field and their relationship-building skills, they help meet the needs of both providers and healthcare organizations.

Helping clinicians focus on providing excellent care

The MSS team takes a lot off of a provider’s plate. Once our clinicians provide their personal information, the MSS team takes it from there managing the licensing process, filling out credentialing applications, facilitating insurance enrollments, and more! That way, the provider can focus on doing their job instead of on clerical tasks. Because of this team’s expertise, they comprehensively understand everything that goes into an application and can complete the process efficiently and thoroughly.

Additionally, this team monitors files daily to ensure licensing and credentialing are on track, renew providers’ licenses, and verify everything they’re currently doing, along with work history and licensing.

This team is an invaluable resource to our clinicians and helps them do what they do best – provide the best care possible to patients all over the country.
Additionally, helping providers get licensed and credentialed proactively and efficiently translates to patients getting the care they need more quickly. It also means providers are set up properly and they can get started facilitating care without any issues.

This team helps address unexpected hurdles that come from working with providers from different states, meaning the organization doesn’t have to worry about doing additional leg work on their end.

Key accomplishments

The MSS team helps keep everything running smoothly, and ensures our providers, and partners have what they need.

Here are a few of their key accomplishments:

  • The MSS teams has grown from 3 to 14 MSS team members from 2020 to 2023
  • Provides licensing and credentialing for PMHNPs, physicians, LCSWs, and LMFTs – in the near term, they will begin licensing and credentialing LPCs
  • In the second half of 2022, the MSS team implemented a new credentialing platform, CredStream, to optimize our workflows and tracking

At Iris, we couldn’t be more proud of all the amazing work this team does day in and day out to support our partners, providers, and patients.

Learn more about the support Team Iris provides

If you’d like to learn more about how our MSS team can help support your organization, contact us today!

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

At Iris, we’re proud to provide a variety of support that help operations run smoothly and efficiently to hospitals and community health organizations all over the country.

How Telehealth Can Support CCBHC Quality Measures through Evidence-Based Care

CCBHCs are required to meet a strict set of quality measures. Fortunately, they don’t have to do it alone. With the help of a strategic telehealth partner, these organizations are better positioned to maintain CCBHC accreditation through high-quality support, evidence-based care, and a team of virtual providers.

In this blog, we’ll walk through how telehealth can provide top-notch support and help CCBHCs in their evidence-based approach to care.

Quality measures and challenges CCBHCs may face

CCBHCs serve as a lifeline for their communities – ensuring high-quality care across the lifespan regardless of age, diagnosis, or insurance status. However, providing this level of service is no easy feat. CCBHCs must follow strict measures like 24/7 crisis services and care coordination and have enough clinicians on staff to support their operations. Additionally, tracking and examining their quality measures is essential to maintaining CCBHC accreditation.

Fortunately, that’s where a strategic behavioral health partner can help by matching CCBHCs with specialty mental health providers to support their populations and on-site providers while helping them track and examine their quality measures.

Let’s take a look at how telehealth can be leveraged in a virtual environment and provide evidence-based care.

What evidence-based care looks like in a virtual environment

Leveraging a telehealth solution can promote quality and evidence-based care by increasing the pool of specialty providers available to a CCBHC. For example, telehealth can help connect an organization with a provider with expertise in evidence-based treatment, whether an LCSW specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or a PMHNP or psychiatrist specializing in substance use treatment.

At Iris Telehealth, we leverage a process called, The Iris Match. This approach is our way of helping ensure an organization gets connected to a provider who aligns with their values, can provide the care their population needs, and is someone providers, and patients love. To learn more about this approach, check out our downloadable “A Healthcare Organization’s Guide to Provider Matching.”

Additionally, the right strategic partner will also look at quality measures alongside the CCBHC. As a Joint Commission-accredited organization, Iris prioritizes reviewing quality measures, including chart and peer reviews. Subsequently, we develop and implement educational initiatives and quality measures based on these reviews. We also collect data for quality measures such as time for initial appointment improvement on PHQ-9s, and our quality team partners with the CCBHC to aggregate the data for our providers, analyze it, and work on quality improvement.

The benefits of working with a quality-focused telehealth partner

Now that we’ve taken a look at what evidence-based care looks like in a virtual environment, let’s explore a few high-level ways the right telehealth partner can benefit a CCBHC’s quality initiatives.

Here are the benefits of a comprehensive telehealth solution:

  • Expansive staffing: Telehealth allows your organization to expand beyond your local community and into a bigger pool of therapists, nurse practitioners, and psychiatrists.
  • Aggregation of quality measures: The right partner can help you aggregate data and compare it to national benchmarks, discuss current partner metrics, and look at quality improvement initiatives together.
  • Access to specialists: Whether you need children and adolescents specialists, bilingual providers, or a clinician who specializes in substance use, telehealth grants access to these providers regardless of your geographic location.
  • Medical group leadership: Working with a seasoned partner allows you to tap into their knowledge base, industry expertise, advice, and schedule regular idea sharing sessions to ensure you’re up to date on the most recent evidence-based practices.
  • Robust support: Your partner may deliver supplementary support like a credentialing team, clinical operations manager, and IT assistance. This additional layer of support allows your organization to continue doing what you do best and minimizes any disruption during the onboarding process.

To learn more about the benefits working with a quality-focused telehealth partner, download our guide here.

Evidence-based care in action

Swope Health is a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) and CCBHC serving the greater Kansas City area, providing a team-based integrated care approach personalized to their population’s needs.

Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, they struggled to find the right provider match for their population. They began facing new challenges with recruiting, and their former hiring strategies weren’t working anymore – that’s when they reached out to Iris for help.

Iris worked closely with the team at Swope and found the perfect provider match who integrated seamlessly into their care team. Since bringing teletherapy to their community, Swope has seen show rates increase by 5%. They’ve also been able to reduce their patient waiting lists substantially.

We’re proud to have helped Swope meet these quality measures and help more people get the care they need. Click here to read their full story.

Where Iris Telehealth fits in

At Iris, we see the amazing work CCBHCs are doing each day, and we couldn’t be more proud to help provide quality care to their populations. That’s why we’re holding a webinar exclusively for CCBHCs on September 14, 1:00-2:00 p.m. CT.

In this live webinar, leaders from CCBHCs across the country will share their journey to certification, how the CCBHC model works for them, and the steps they’re taking to meet the quality measures necessary to maintain CCBHC accreditation and improve health outcomes.

Want to hold your seat? Click here to sign-up for the webinar!

Additionally, if you’d like to learn more about how working with the right strategic behavioral health partner can improve your CCBHC’s approach to quality care, contact us today.