Recognizing and Seizing the Opportunities That Value-Based Payment Models Offer Behavioral Health Care.

The rapid rise of value-based payment (VBP) models presents both new opportunities and challenges for behavioral health providers, especially in health systems that serve low-income and marginalized communities. This column discusses the experience of a community health care system as an early adopter of VBP in order to demonstrate both the constraints and possibilities health systems face when implementing VBP models. This example and the lessons drawn from it can assist other health systems seeking to implement these models.

Promoting Population Behavioral Health in a Safety-Net Health System During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been expected to lead to substantial increases in need for behavioral health care. A population health framework can facilitate the development of interventions and policies to promote the equitable distribution of care across the population. This column describes the application of population behavioral health principles in a safety-net health system during the pandemic. The approach includes stepped models of care, interventions to target individuals at high behavioral health risk, and measurement-based care. Early data suggest that these strategies have resulted in expanded behavioral health care capacity.