April 2026 | Iris Telehealth
Behavioral health drives patient outcomes.
But in most health systems, it’s still treated like it lives on the margins — under-resourced, seen as a cost center, and left out of core strategy, even though it shapes what happens across the entire system.
That tension was front and center at the Becker’s Annual Conference and Behavioral Health Summit in Chicago this week. And for two days, hundreds of leaders got real about how to close the gap — not just in principle, but in practice.
What the Room Was Saying
The conversations were candid. Behavioral health has historically struggled to compete for investment because the ROI is harder to quantify than a surgical line or a cardiology program. That framing is changing — leaders are getting better at translating clinical outcomes into financial language — but the urgency is real. Federal funding for behavioral health is under pressure at the same time demand is rising.
The question isn’t whether behavioral health matters anymore. It’s how to fund it, staff it, and integrate it fast enough to keep up with demand.
The leaders in that room aren’t waiting for conditions to improve. They’re building now.
Our Session: From Crisis Response to Continuity of Care
We were proud to host Melissa Bruhle, MSM and Sarah E. Rocha, MD from Elliott Healthcare for The Next Era of Behavioral Health: From Crisis Response to Continuity of Care.
The premise: the behavioral health system was built around crisis. Catch patients at the ED, stabilize, discharge. What comes next has to be different — care that’s woven into ongoing treatment, not activated only when things fall apart. Because what happens between visits, after discharge, and across specialties is what ultimately drives outcomes.
One of the clearest examples came from Elliott’s approach: the creation of a Behavioral Health Care Coordinator role. Not just adding access, but adding ownership — someone responsible for connecting the patient journey across settings, following through after discharge, and making sure care doesn’t drop off at the handoff.
That kind of coordination isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s what turns episodic care into a system that actually works.
Most health systems are already delivering behavioral health in some form. The question is whether they have the right clinical partners, specialty support, and infrastructure to do it well — across primary care, women’s health, and beyond.
Our Roundtable: 27 Leaders on What’s Actually Working
Twenty-seven behavioral health leaders joined our roundtable, What’s Working, What’s Next: A Leadership Conversation on the Future of Behavioral Health. The conversation was honest and energizing. Two themes kept coming back:
Care coordination is the whole game.
Fragmented care — behavioral health siloed from primary care, specialty care, and the rest of the system — continues to be one of the biggest barriers to better outcomes. The opportunity isn’t awareness; it’s building the connective tissue that allows care to move with the patient across settings.
You’re already doing behavioral health.
Whether you run a health system, an FQHC, or a women’s health program, your patients are showing up with behavioral health needs — and your teams are responding to them in some capacity. The gap isn’t recognition. It’s having the support, structure, and resources to meet those needs intentionally, consistently, and at scale.
What We’re Taking Home
Behavioral health isn’t a sidebar. It drives what happens across the entire system — outcomes, costs, quality, and patient experience.
The leaders at Becker’s know this. They’re done waiting for the rest of the industry to catch up.
So are we.
Talk to the Iris Telehealth team about building behavioral health programs that last.
