Kinwell Health: Integrating behavioral health
Integrating behavioral health is written by Justina McCray, a licensed mental health counselor with Kinwell’s Olympia clinic. Learn more about Kinwell at kinwellhealth.com.
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Stress can negatively affect your nutrition and sleep, making it harder to maintain your physical well-being. And depression can make it harder to stay engaged in activities and social connections that support good health.
Kinwell clinicians understand the connection between physical and emotional health. That’s why behavioral health is integrated into primary care and every patient has a behavioral health clinician (BHC) on their care team.
Treating difficult situations
You may want to consider seeing a behavioral health clinician (BHC) if you have communication conflicts with your partner, a long to-do list that’s adding to your stress, physical concerns that are increasing, or you’ve been seeing your primary care provider more frequently.
These are all areas where a behavioral health clinician can provide support. Your primary care provider (PCP) and your BHC work alongside one another, collaborating on your care and prioritizing your goals by addressing the underlying medical and behavioral causes.
Behavioral health generalists
By integrating behavioral and primary care, a BHC is not just supporting patients with depression or anxiety. BHCs help patients meet any behavioral health goal, like getting restful sleep, losing weight, taking medications, lowering their blood pressure, quitting smoking, and communicating effectively with their loved ones.
Behavioral health clinicians are considered generalists and see patients of all ages and walks of life. We see patients who need support with organization and focusing, taking their blood pressure regularly, working through obsessive compulsive symptoms, and dealing with major life changes such as divorce.
A team approach
Each morning, behavioral health clinicians huddle with PCPs and medical assistants to discuss the patients on that day’s schedule, their chief concerns, and if a behavioral health consult might be needed. By coordinating care, BHCs and PCPs can devise the best plan of action to meet each patient’s needs. This could include discussing the benefits of medication or more frequent follow-ups with the BHC. Time is set aside each day to consult with patients who have appointments with other members of their care team, so they can access needed behavioral support without having to return to the clinic on another day.
This discussion also includes celebrating the progress patients make on their health journey. We are overjoyed when patients meet their goals. Creating new behavioral health habits can be challenging for anyone, but BHCs aim to provide a collaborative approach as patients establish new habits. Each BHC appointment is approximately 30 minutes long and patients can choose to be seen in person or virtually.
By Justina McCray, LMHC
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If you are a Kinwell patient and would benefit by seeing a behavioral health clinician, schedule an appointment by calling 833-411-5469.