Our guest this week, Matt Miclette, is military veteran and a psychiatric and mental health board certified registered nurse. He is the Senior Director of Clinical Operations at NeuroFlow – a digital health company that provides an industry-leading solution for Technology-Enabled Psychiatric Collaborative Care.  Matt is also the Co-Founder and Executive Director of a nonprofit organization called Action Tank.  As a recipient of the prestigious Pat Tillman military scholarship, Matt is living with the passion that Pat Tillman spoke of, “Passion is what makes life interesting, what ignites our soul, fuels our love and carries our friendships, stimulates our intellect, and pushes our limits … A passion for life is contagious and uplifting.” Matt’s passion is bright and shines through in his service for people with mental health needs.

In value-based care, it is clear that primary care is at the tip of the spear in dealing with Ambulatory Care Sensitive Conditions like CHF, COPD, and diabetes that drive up costs. In that model for managing chronic disease, the position of primary care providers being upstream to specialists allows them to curb 80-90% of healthcare costs by preventing unnecessary specialist visits and avoidable inpatient stays and ED visits.  With behavior health, it is a little bit different though.  Behavioral health conditions (for the most part) can’t be addressed by specialists because there aren’t any access points for them to even be seen! Although 70% of primary care appointments include problems with significant psychosocial issues, less than half of those receive any mental health treatment at all, because there is a such a shortage of specialists. To put this in context, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration estimates that by 2025, the U.S. will have a shortage of over 15k psychiatrists and 26k mental health counselors!

Research shows that a Psychiatric Collaborative Care Model (CoCM) is an effective and efficient way of delivering integrated care for more complex patient behavioral health needs – CoCM is a model that enhances “usual” primary care by adding two key services: care management support for patients receiving behavioral health treatment and regular psychiatric inter-specialty consultation to the primary care team. Join us as we consider this and other important solutions with Matt in this week’s race to value!

Episode Bookmarks:

04:45 “Passion is what makes life interesting, what ignites our soul, fuels our love and carries our friendships, stimulates our intellect, and pushes our limits.” – Pat Tillman

05:40 Matt discusses the inspiration of Pat Tillman and his passion into lifelong learning

06:00 How caring for wounded warriors recovering from combat trauma drove Matt’s future work in treating the “indivisible injuries” impacting behavior health

07:00 Realizing the stigma associated with behavior health from his time leading a military psych unit in Fort Hood

07:50 Making an impact through facility-level hospital policy, e.g. 75% reduction in restraint use

08:10 Matt discusses his experience working in public health policy related to substance use disorder

08:30 A shared passion for “changing the world” with Christopher Molaro, CEO/Co-Founder of Neuroflow

09:30 Alarming stats about behavioral health and SUD in our country!

11:10 Matt on the recent CDC report showing that the U.S. hit the highest level of annual overdose deaths ever recorded (93,000) – a 30% increase from prior year!

11:45 “The shortage of mental health providers is most acutely seen in rural communities. Over 50% of the counties in the U.S. don’t have a single psychiatrist.”

12:05 Understanding the population and identifying which individuals have the most acute behavioral health needs throu...