Making Anxiety Screening Possible Through Collaborative Care

We are pleased to see the recent calls to make screening for anxiety and depression routine for all adults and children 8 and older. Recognizing behavioral health as an integrated—and much-needed—part of overall healthcare is long overdue.

However, in order to make widespread anxiety screening available, we must first find a way to make behavioral and mental health support a reality for every American, young and old.

Ideally, mental and behavioral health would be a standard component of all health care - and all providers would have the support they need to screen for anxiety and depression as part of routine care and then easily connect patients with same day/next day evidence-based behavioral health treatment. The access to behavioral health treatment will encourage and support adoption of comprehensive anxiety screening across healthcare providers and systems.

As anxiety screening is more widely adopted, it will be those steps after screening that become critical. In order to effectively care for their patients, healthcare providers will need ways to connect patients with treatment, eliminating the roadblocks they face when navigating the complex mental health system and trying to access affordable, evidence-based follow-up care, such as Collaborative Care.

A proven model for effectively treating anxiety and depression, Collaborative Care will allow the healthcare system to scale behavioral health screening in a way that gives every patient access and offers support to providers.

At Concert we are proud to have partnered with the nation’s premier healthcare organizations to make Collaborative Care an integrated part of primary care. We have already cared for 40,000+ patients across 15 states and we look forward to our continued work to bring critical behavioral health services to every patient. Additionally, we are formally recommending to the United States Preventative Task Force that they not only continue to support expanded anxiety and depression screening but a month of Collaborative Care as follow-up for those who screen positive.