Working with one cancer pa- tient 15 years ago was all it took to convince Barbara Chapman, a nurse working in a Dallas primary care practice at the time, that the mental health treatment model needed serious work.
The patient, a woman di agnosed with breast and lung cancer as well as schizophrenia, didn’t have health insurance. Chapman spent weeks trying to find a place that would treat her physical and mental illness.
This pivotal experience is why Chapman, now serving as a clinical professor for the family nurse practitioner and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner programs at the University of Texas at Tyler, advocates for a more collaborative care model for mental and medical health fields.
Studies found primary care physicians are frequently the first point of contact when it comes to mental illness, not behavioral health providers.
This is why professionals like Chapman advocate for a collaborative care model in which primary care visits would include screenings for behavioral health issues like depression, anxiety and substance abuse.
"There is not a diagnosis that doesn’t have a mental health component. I am doing everything in my power to promote that message to my students and others because we can work together to solve this crisis we find ourselves in," Chapman said. "This means we can be the front line to total treatment.”
In Texas, 98% of all 254 counties are designated as mental health professional shortage areas. The state ranks last in the nation for access to mental health care. The shortage can be even more problematic in rural areas because many patients earn less money than in cities, do not have health insurance, or may not have transportation to larger areas that provide greater access to the therapists and psychiatrists they need.
Historically, behavioral health has been structured, researched, financed, and regulated differ ently than physical health care. Mental health and substance abuse disorders are typically treated as a specialty. Even the way people pay for mental health and medical treatment has been vastly different.
If every Texan with major depression had access to the Collaborative Care Model, which is a team of healthcare profession- als, between 725 and 1,100 lives could be saved each year, according to a 2020 study by Meadows Mental Health Institute.
