Maine is experiencing a shortage of behavioral health services at a time when the need is great. Across the country, the demand for services, particularly in the outpatient setting, is projected to increase while the supply of psychiatrists and outpatient therapists is projected to diminish¹. To solve this problem, MaineHealth Behavioral Health (MHBH) has launched a multi-year strategy to increase access across the MaineHealth service area.

Stephanie LeBlanc, LCSW, CCS serves as the Senior Director of System and Integrated services at MHBH. She is one of several leaders instrumental in developing an Integrated System Framework (ISF) that leverages resources across the MaineHealth footprint to meet the growing demand for behavioral health services.

“This is all about making sure the patient is getting their needs met at the right time, at the right place, and within the most appropriate level of care,” LeBlanc said. “We need to rethink behavioral health service delivery to better utilize existing resources in innovative ways.”

¹Behavioral Health Workforce Projection, 2022

Maximizing psychiatry resources

One of the ways MHBH seeks to serve more patients is through the collaboration of psychiatric consultation and primary care.  A patient’s primary care provider (PCP) is often the most convenient resource to begin treatment for a behavioral health disorder and comes with the added comfort level of personalized care by a known and trusted provider. When faced with a patient’s behavioral health concerns, the PCP can receive expert guidance from a psychiatrist or advanced psychiatric practitioner (APP).

Psychiatric consultation can meet a wide range of needs based on the severity of the behavioral health diagnosis.

In less severe cases, consultation can take the form of a conversation between the PCP and APP to discuss the best approach to treatment. In more complex cases, the APP will meet with the patient in person or via telehealth.

Benefits of eConsults

Dr. Alexander Fiorentino is a primary care provider at MaineHealth Mid Coast Hospital and serves as the primary care lead for adult eConsults at MaineHealth.

“Psychiatry is an area where access has historically been challenging and there is more need than available capacity,” says Dr. Fiorentino. “The eConsult tool is ideal because the patient benefits from specialty guidance within the primary care setting. With this model the psychiatrist typically gives advice within three business days if not sooner. This frees up the specialty office (behavioral health clinic) in terms of access for more severely ill patients because the wait list is not as full of patients who are less ill and able to be treated in primary care.”

Dr. Fiorentino, like many health professionals, understands that the trend of ‘doing more with less’ doesn’t seem to be changing soon.

“To be successful, we must continue to challenge norms and dare to be creative to provide the best behavioral health care possible to the patients we serve,” said LeBlanc.

Here when you need us!

MaineHealth Behavioral Health has more than 90 integrated clinicians available to provide quality behavioral health treatment at MaineHealth primary and specialty care practices.