The Integrated Care Podcast

In this month's episode, the Integrated Care podcast panel dives into one of the heaviest — and most important — clinical topics in primary care: seasonal depression and suicidal ideation. But true to form, they find hope, humor, and practical wisdom along the way.

Grace Pratt, LMFT — Behavioral medicine faculty, Integris Great Plains Family Medicine Residency (Oklahoma City)

Ashley Garrison — Pediatric dietitian, Burlington & Mebane Pediatrics (North Carolina)

Bridget Beachy — Primary care behavioral health integration (Washington state)

Monica Williams, LCSW — Integrated care advocate (North Carolina)

Jen Thomas, MD — Family medicine & addiction medicine physician, co-medical director at CFHA (Illinois)

Neftali Serrano — CEO, Collaborative Family Healthcare Association (North Carolina)

In this episode:

Back-to-school season brings new routines, new challenges, and for many families, new questions about ADHD. In this episode of the Integrated Care Podcast, our hosts explore ADHD diagnosis, treatment, nutrition, behavioral strategies, and the role of integrated care in supporting children, adults, and families.

The conversation covers what ADHD can look like in primary care, how clinicians can distinguish ADHD from anxiety, trauma, and other conditions, and why diagnosis involves more than simply completing a screening questionnaire. The team also discusses when specialty referrals and neuropsychological testing may be helpful and how integrated care teams can support patients when access to specialty services is limited.

Pediatric dietitian Ashley Garrison shares practical strategies for supporting children with ADHD through nutrition, including reducing sugary drinks, incorporating protein throughout the day, and working with picky eaters one small step at a time. The group also discusses sleep, routines, visual systems, school collaboration, medication, and helping children develop self-management skills and agency.

Throughout the episode, the hosts emphasize meeting families where they are, choosing realistic goals, and building sustainable strategies that work within each family's circumstances.

Ep. #101 Integrated Care for Older Adults by Collaborative Family Healthcare Association

This CFHA Podcast episode features integrated behavioral health clinicians working in specialty settings: Dr. Kim Smolderen (integrated psychology in cardiovascular care at Yale Heart and Vascular Center), Dr. Jonathan Deiches (psychologist in bariatric surgery and a diabetes/obesity clinic at WVU Medicine), and Dr. Toni Mahold (integrated behavioral health in a Minnesota Heart and Vascular Center with inpatient and outpatient continuity). They describe common referrals (post–heart attack depression, stress cardiomyopathy with trauma, device-related PTSD, postpartum hypertension stress management, bariatric pre-surgical evaluations, depression affecting diabetes care, eating disorders, and picky eating), the importance of co-location, warm handoffs, and team-based routines, and how credibility grows through relationships and demonstrated patient impact. They discuss applying PCBH concepts like GATHER to specialty care, the need for space, leadership buy-in, and metrics beyond RVUs, and future goals including playbooks across specialties, broader training, reduced stigma, sustainability, and leadership in system design.

In the 100th episode of the Integrated Care Podcast from the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association, host Grace Pratt and co-hosts Bridget Beachy, Monica Williams, Neftali Serrano, Jen Thomas, and Ashley Garrison celebrate the milestone, share the podcast’s origins, and highlight CFHA’s upcoming integrated care conference in St. Louis in early October. They revisit the long-running topic of integrated care models and discuss why many clinical sites cannot run PCBH, Collaborative Care, or other approaches to strict fidelity due to real-world constraints like staffing, resources, policy, and local context. The group emphasizes focusing on core tenets, shared language, and the “spirit” of integrated care rather than rigid prescriptions, noting that descriptive norms (e.g., typical visit counts) should not become exclusionary rules. The episode closes with Donna Ashworth’s poem “Ducks in a Row” as an ode to embracing messiness.

ennifer Thomas hosts a special CFHA Integrated Care Podcast episode featuring board-certified psychiatrist and addiction medicine specialist Dr. Virmarie “Dr. V” Diaz-Hernandez, national medical director at Concert Health, discussing psychiatric consultation in primary care within the Collaborative Care Model. Dr. V shares her training in Puerto Rico and the U.S., how stigma and fragmented systems drive the need for integrated care, and her early CoCM training through the AIMS Center. She explains the CoCM “triangle” roles (PCP, behavioral health care manager, and psychiatric consultant), how consultation differs from traditional psychiatry, and why it can be rewarding through population-level impact. They cover lessons learned—clear roles, flexible workflows, strong communication, weekly systematic case reviews using a registry, and avoiding program drift—plus how remote teams work and resources like CFHA training, the job board, and the CFHA annual conference (Oct 8–10 in St. Louis).

On the Integrated Care Podcast, host Grace Pratt and co-hosts Jen Thomas, Deepu George, Monica Williams, Neftali Serrano, and Ashley Garrison welcome child and adolescent psychiatrist (and former pediatrician) Dr. Mary Dobbins to discuss an HHS announcement, highlighted at a May 4 summit with the Maha Institute, about reducing over-prescribing of psychiatric medications and supporting alternatives. The panel explores mixed reactions: agreement that de-prescribing and holistic supports matter, but concern that the messaging can fuel mistrust, stigma, and fear-mongering, and that proposed solutions lack practical infrastructure for psychotherapy, family support, and nutrition. Dobbins emphasizes that most childhood mental health problems are experiential, often tied to trauma, poverty, and social stressors, and argues for relational, trauma-informed, team-based care alongside appropriate medication use. The episode closes with a Mary Oliver reading about teaching children.

On the Integrated Care Podcast sponsored by the Collaborative Family Healthcare Association, host Neft Serrano and co-hosts Bridget (Washington FQHC), Jen (Northern Illinois family medicine/addiction medicine), and Ashley (North Carolina pediatric dietitian) discuss how rapid change—federal policy shifts, immigration enforcement fears, Medicaid cuts, global conflict, and AI—affects healthcare workers and patients. They describe workforce strain, burnout pressures to see more patients, and challenges sustaining effective behavioral health integration, while also highlighting organizational adaptability through strong leadership, awareness, and clear communication. Ashley shares clinic efforts to protect patients during ICE-related fears and program disruptions from Medicaid coverage changes. The group argues change can clarify core values, strengthen team-based integrated care focused on community health, and open broader discussions like Medicare for All amid spending priorities. They also briefly address growing use of AI tools for patient questions, clinical support, and documentation.

Hosts of the Integrated Care Podcast (CFHA)—Grace Pratt with co-hosts Bridgette Beachy, Ashley Garrison, Jen Thomas, and Monica Williams—discuss how “policy is practice and practice is policy,” emphasizing resisting all-or-nothing thinking and recognizing that change is a long game. They share personal entry points into policy engagement, including Medicaid expansion advocacy, and preview CFHA learning resources and the October 8–10, 2026 CFHA conference in St. Louis. The conversation focuses on recent federal shifts affecting clinical work, including vaccine guidance moving several childhood vaccines to shared clinical decision-making and the resulting impact on primary care conversations, trust, insurance, and schools. They also discuss updated dietary messaging, with Ashley explaining a protein-and-vegetable-forward approach, practical strategies for families, and how integrated care teams support patient-centered decisions amid misinformation and clinician strain.

Hosts Grace Pratt, Monica Harrison, Bridget, Neftali Serrano, and late-arriving co-host Jen Thomas introduce themselves on the Integrated Care Podcast and share CFHA updates, including the virtual spring conference (May 6–7) and a call for proposals for the October fall conference in St. Louis, plus cohort-based trainings on cfha.net. The group workshops a planned fall mini-summit prompted by Naftali’s concern that government momentum for behavioral health integration is waning while cost pressures, health tech fragmentation, and changes to primary care accelerate. They discuss the need for a unified message centered on team-based care, the operational barriers within health systems, and gaps between clinical progress, organizational change, and policy influence, emphasizing relationship-building with administrators and policymakers so integrated care is included in future payment models and legislation.