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.
