Dr. Joshua Barnett, Behavioral Health Data Scientist, Pinellas County Human Services
Pinellas County is a popular community on Florida’s Gulf Coast with nearly 1 million year-round residents and over 90,000 annual visitors. It is a community with a complex health system and a growing population. Earlier this year, Pinellas County launched Care About Me, a coordinated access model (CAM) for behavioral healthcare. This model provides multiple access options (phone, text, and chat) to navigate the behavioral health system of care using accepted and standardized screening tools and schedule clinical appointments with a broad network of treatment agencies for all residents of Pinellas County. Regardless of age, insurance status, or intensity of symptoms, those seeking treatment through the CAM will interact with an experienced clinician who identifies the appropriate level of care, offers a provider that meets their preferences (in-person, virtual, BIPOC, or LGBT+), and schedules their clinical intake appointment. For providers, the information collected from the resident is sent electronically in advance of the appointment, ensuring a trauma-informed process that avoids the need for the patient to restate their symptoms or demographics. Confirmation of appointment attendance is later tracked within the electronic referral portal, streamlining the exchange of information and ensuring connections to the identified treatment services.
“Care About Me” offers the community many benefits. First, it reduces the barrier of not knowing where to start, which in turn reduces overuse and avoidable use of crisis stabilization units; it improves coordination and warm handoff to service providers, connects residents to the most accurate service for their needs inclusive of their personal preferences, and eliminates ambiguity about wait times into care for the services residents are seeking. In a system with multiple public funders (state, county, grants, and philanthropy), coupled with a lack of transparency for services rendered by private insurance organizations, information about community-wide mental health needs is incorrectly measured by utilizing existing services, if reported. A CAM offers incredible insights resulting from independent screening, level of care determination, and scheduling of appointments, which are measurable for enhanced monitoring, analysis, and planning. This level of measurement improves a community’s ability to coordinate funding among public funders, appraise access to care, and prevent crises resulting from not knowing how or where to access mental health or substance use treatment services. Most importantly, Care About Me saves time for residents and social service professionals alike in Pinellas County.
Since going public in early 2024, over 700 residents have sought services through Care About Me, which links them to a network of 14 clinical partners comprised of large and small treatment organizations availing services to youth/adolescents, adults, and seniors. For social service agencies, primary care clinics, and emergency departments where coordinating behavioral health services is not a primary function, the CAM offers an efficient solution to connect their clients and patients to treatment services in a way that reduces administrative burdens or potential “bounce back” if admission criteria were not met. Admission/exclusion criteria and accepted insurances or government-funded providers’ services are collected in advance by the CAM, improving the experience of residents motivated to engage in treatment.
A robust marketing plan for Care About Me is underway to standardize and de-stigmatize the experience of seeking behavioral health services in Pinellas County. This will decrease Baker Acts, justice involvement, traumatic crisis events, and the guesswork for the 1 in 5 residents who experience mental illness each year and are seeking to manage symptoms such as anxiety, depression, or substance use.
Care About Me was developed with public input to improve the local experience of accessing behavioral health care in Pinellas County. This included six months of continuous quality improvement from referring and treatment providers to ensure a quality process for all those interacting with the CAM, including the residents. Pinellas County is proud of this tremendous effort to coordinate access to behavioral health services, demonstrating that we care about residents through Care About Me.
