I’m just settling back down to Earth from the Innovations in Recovery conference in San Diego, where I was able to travel with Andrew Burki from Life of Purpose Treatment and spoke on foreseeable trends in behavioral healthcare, specifically relating to treatment for Substance Use Disorder.
My takeaway was that, not only is Delray Beach the new “Recovery Capital of the U.S.”, but it is also as a microcosm of how national healthcare is being implemented.
Our past predictions that medical health care trends will be the template for Substance Use Disorder (SUD) treatment providers are coming to fruition, as also recently reported by Behavioral Healthcare magazine Editor Julie Miller.
Julie’s takeaway is the same as ours – treatment providers who want to remain relevant will either: (1) remain independent but partner with existing health systems to coordinate care; (2) become part of an existing hospital health system in one way or another; or (3) compete with the health system as it develops its own in-house behavioral health services.
In her article, “National Council dives into big picture trends,” Julie Miller writes:
It is quite possibly the best of times in behavioral health, according to Linda Rosenberg, president and CEO of the National Council for Behavioral Health. A national parity law came on the scene in 2008, the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, and subsequent gains in coverage and access have added up to an unprecedented opportunity in the business of treatment and recovery.
The National Council this year is placing an emphasis on the interface between hospitals and community organizations because the relationship is changing within the context of the big picture of healthcare, Rosenberg says. And in response, the two stakeholder groups must make fundamental shifts.
“We’re seeing healthcare as a commodity in ways we’ve never seen before, and that includes mental health and addiction,” she says. “The field is about growth.”
Increasingly, hospitals need to become a more integral part of the extended provider community as they adopt accountable care models, whole-person health and outcomes-based strategies for their patients. Their livelihood now depends more and more on what happens outside of the hospital walls.
For those interested (and can afford the exorbitant fees), the National Council for Behavioral Health Conference takes place in Orlando April 19 to 22.
Find out more here – http://bit.ly/1bebKC1
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