This episode of Quality Matters features Kate Hobbs, CEO of the behavioral healthcare services company, Author Health.

Aiming to help listeners navigate behavioral healthcare’s complexities, Kate outlines four essential dimensions of the field. She also explores how validated clinical tools and emerging technologies, such as wearables, can help measure what matters in behavioral health. She makes a powerful case for moving beyond fee-for-service toward value-based payment models that incentivize coordinated care and reach vulnerable patients.

 

Listen to learn about:

• Understanding Gaps in Access: Fragmented systems and funding silos make care hard to reach, especially for people who need care the most.
• What’s Exciting—and Worrisome—About Digital Technology: Digital innovation expands the reach of the behavioral health workforce and enables smarter, scalable care. But ongoing attention to accuracy and privacy is essential.
• The Need for Value-Based Payment: Fee-for-service “breaks” behavioral healthcare and fails vulnerable people most of all. Value-based care offers the path to quality, equity and sustainability.

 

Key Quote:

“We cannot exist with fee-for-service. We have to move to a value-based approach.

You've seen progression in behavioral health with payers and states moving towards value-based payments that are holding providers accountable for quality.

That gets me excited because that's going to help us move the needle and fund the level of resources we need to help people get better.”

 -Katherine Hobbs, MD, MPH


Time Stamps:

• (03:16) Assessing In-Person vs. Virtual Behavioral Healthcare
• (05:07) Wearables and Other Tech-Based Innovation
• (06:08) Understanding and Measuring Access to Behavioral Healthcare
• (10:56) Why Fee-For-Service Must Go
• (15:20) Excitement for the Future

 

Dive Deeper:

Connect with Katherine Hobbs

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.