Recently, I was invited to attend a meeting with the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions (NAHPC) focused on mental health and substance use care. The meeting included stakeholders from around Maryland that are participating in a nationally funded initiative to improve health care and close the gaps in care that employers are seeing in their workforce. My invitation was directly related to the work URAC has been doing on Integrated Behavioral Health and our new work on Mental Health Parity.
Employers are becoming much more active in their role as ultimate payer/buyer of benefits to confront the problems and improve the value they receive through their ever-increasing spend on health care. This initiative by NAHPC goes by the name “RESET”, for Regional Employer Stakeholder Engagement Team. The project outlines what they call five inter-related opportunities that will be the focus for the project:
- Measurement-based Care
- Mental Health Parity Compliance
- Tele-behavioral Health
- Collaborative Care
- Network Access
Stakeholder meetings like this sometimes feature more finger-pointing than commitments to change. But when you look at the areas the employers feel are their opportunities to improve care, URAC’s ability to have an impact is clear. During the day of meetings, our presence and our commitment to work on these areas was mentioned several times and my presence was noted as an example of the commitment URAC has made to improving care.
The role of URAC as an independent third-party working to better the lives of patients and not participate in the “blame storming” is one of the opportunities we must take as an organization to improve care. February marks my one-year anniversary at URAC. I am more convinced today than I was my first day that we have a real opportunity to make a difference in health care across the whole country and we do it by using our integrity to serve our ultimate customers – our friends and loved ones. Thank you for all you do.
