Narcisse asks about wait times; Long on collaborative care for behavioral health

What are the current average wait times for NYC care members to access primary?

You told me two weeks.

I remember that.

I can say it again.

But the specialty, the specialty, the behavioral health services, and how have those wait times changed over the last three fiscal years?

Yeah, so behavioral health is a really good question.

So similar to specialty care, we don't just make referrals and create a wait list for behavioral health.

What we do is we triage based on acuity or need.

And I'll give you a very pragmatic example of this, but I think it really points out the cornerstone of our approach.

We believe strongly in the collaborative care program and approach to behavioral health.

For everybody, what that is, is it is a team of social workers under the supervision of one psychiatrist that can deliver therapy and care to people with depression or anxiety.

The way it works is we screen all of our patients for depression and anxiety, and then among those that screen positive, we either offer to connect you to collaborative care or, this is where the triage piece comes into it, if your PHQ-9 is high enough,

we actually do a warm handoff to your social worker that will be your treating social worker that day.

I do that all.

And myself.

I walk my patient to, her name is Doris, sorry Doris, our social worker, that will be their collaborative care therapist.

And then that way we can assess for safety, but also get them engaged, make them comfortable with who's going to be delivering care to them going forward.

So the answer to your question of what are the wait times for behavioral health care, it depends on your acuity, depends on other factors.

But ultimately, collaborative care lets us get everybody in the door much more quickly because we're basically amplifying the reach of one psychiatrist through all the different social workers that are on that team.

And if you have enough of a need right away, we'll do a warm handoff to give you a same-day visit.

Sorry, I was not on.