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Integration of Primary Health & Mental
Health Services
CHOICE is seeking
funding to develop new ways of integrating primary health services with mental
health services. Often, our clients have health issues beyond mental illness or
substance abuse, and yet are reluctant to seek medical help. Their fears of any
clinical setting are based on past negative experiences. Even when seeking primary
health care, patients are often reluctant to disclose they are taking psychotropic
medication, and experience has shown that often clinicians can interpret life-threatening
symptoms as merely psychosomatic once they know the patient has a psychiatric
diagnosis.
CHOICE
facilitates medical care for its present clients by transporting them to services,
scheduling appointments and interpreting instructions. But CHOICE would like to
create a collaborative model program with primary health care providers, in which
the agency would act as a liaison between providers and clients, opening avenues
of communication and educating clinicians and patients of each others needs. This
collaborative model would allow CHOICE to support patient disclosure and assist
the health care provider in identifying patients most in need. It would also allow
for outreach to adults with mental illness who enter the system of care via a
primary care facility.
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