This is a project carried out at a pediatric clinic in Shafter, CA that was desiring to implement a primary care behavioral health (PCBH) delivery model to help patients diagnosed with behavioral health concerns access the in-house behavioral health consultant (BHC) services. The data used were mainly hypothetical. It was a quality improvement project and the purposes for it were a) to determine whether the PCBH program would demonstrate positive return on investment (ROI) and b) to evaluate the comparative cost-effectiveness of hiring a psychologist and a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) BHC. Financial analysis was conducted using ROI and cost comparison calculations. To organize PCBH program revenue and expenses calculation, a pro forma was used. It was discovered from ROI calculations that for every dollar the clinics spent to hire a psychologist as BHC, it lost 25 cents and for the LCSW, it lost six cents. As expected, LCSWs were more cost-effective for the PCBH program of the clinic than a psychologist. The evaluation produced an actualization of 34% cost savings of hiring LCSW over the psychologist. The program intervention for both professionals as BHC produced negative ROI, though a LCSW would bring in around $0.19 more revenue than a psychologist. Additional studies on the financial viability of PCBH model of service need to be carried out within the pediatric settings to ascertain the fiscal sustainability of the model.
Leave a Reply