For anyone attending the CFHA annual conference last month, there was no shortage of excellent content to choose from. The teams from Animo Sano Psychiatry and Concert Health supported the conference with sponsorship and presentations, and the takeaway is undeniable: The Collaborative Care Model (Collaborative Care) is no longer a promising pilot program—it is the established standard that the industry is now focused on scaling, funding, and perfecting for every patient demographic.
The conference reinforced a shared mission beyond data and models: our commitment to accessible, integrated, and patient-centered behavioral health through strong collaboration between primary care and behavioral health teams. It’s hard to capture it all, but a few highlights emerged from sessions discussing Collaborative Care and the future of integrated behavioral health.
The thread weaving through nearly every discussion is that the model continues its transition from an innovative concept to a foundational practice.
While clinical models were refined, significant focus was directed toward ensuring these proven models can survive financially. Implementation success is meaningless without a sustainable funding structure.
This has been and continues to be a bottleneck. Progress in clinical quality is constrained by administrative and legislative hurdles. The next major leap in integrated care will come from winning the fight for equitable reimbursement, a point driven home by sessions comparing rates and identifying advocacy opportunities.
Beyond the policy discussions, the teams at Concert Health and Animo Sano Psychiatry are working to translate these concepts into real-world impact. Through the Collaborative Care model, we partner closely with primary care providers to deliver psychiatric consultation, medication management support, and behavioral health expertise that strengthens care at every level.
For many patients, especially in underserved or rural areas, traditional systems create barriers such as long waits and fragmented services. Together, we’re working to bridge that divide, ensuring patients have access to timely, connected, and compassionate care. This collaboration embodies what CFHA stands for: building integrated systems that put patients first and make behavioral health a foundation of whole-person care.
The conference showcased that Collaborative Care isn't just for general behavioral health integration; it’s the essential engine for tackling our most complex, multi-morbid patient populations.
The model’s viability and depth are confirmed by its utility in high-stakes, specialized care settings. It is a universal framework capable of solving highly specific integration challenges.
The message from this conference is clear: Integrated care, anchored by the Collaborative Care Model, is here to stay, and its future hinges on execution and funding. The evidence is overwhelming, the pathways are being built for every age group, and the next frontier is ensuring robust policy supports this standard.
The challenge for every organization moving forward is to look beyond current implementation approaches, and asking questions like: Are you actively tracking state-level reimbursement rates?, and, Are you applying the Collaborative Care framework to your highest-need chronic care populations? The time for debating the value of integrated care is over; the time for strategic investment and aggressive advocacy is now.
The CFHA Conference highlighted the power of collaboration. Animo Sano Psychiatry and Concert Health are jointly advancing a future of embedded, seamless, and equitable behavioral healthcare. We are committed to championing this model, which improves outcomes and transforms the patient experience through empathy and innovation. By integrating behavioral health and primary care, we provide barrier-free, compassionate, evidence-based support. Through shared purpose, we are moving the future of accessible, high-quality behavioral health forward, one connection at a time.