Onsite Collaborative Care – Meeting Patients’ Mental Health Needs From Their Providers' Exam Rooms

One in 20 Primary Care Provider appointments is primarily to address mental health.

February 01, 2024

Elisabeth Xavier (2).png

ELISABETH XAVIER is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who has served as a Behavioral Care Manager since the beginning of Health First’s Onsite Collaborative Care program. “These are patients experiencing mild to moderate anxiety and depression, insomnia, even bipolar behaviors, and the goal is providing solution-focused therapy, positive coping skills, and medication management.”

For two years, patients at a Health First Primary Care Providers' offices could share their mental health concerns, get evaluated for it , and receive a Behavioral Care Manager.

At a time when mental health care and drug therapy is hard to schedule, this resource has been a blessing to Health First patients.

“In Brevard County, you can be on a waitlist for three months to find a prescribing Provider,” says Elisabeth Xavier, a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who has served as a Behavioral Care Manager since the beginning of the program. “With us, it’s one week, two tops.”

Last year, the program made more than 1,400 referrals and welcomed 450 new admissions. Not every patient asking for a mental health intervention needs to see a psychiatrist.

READ the full feature, including the partnership with consulting Psychiatrist Jordan Brown, MD, at Space Coast Daily HERE.