Upward Health Program Spotlight: Integrated Behavioral Health in Action
At Upward Health, our whole-person model of care is critical to ensuring effective treatment across physical, behavioral, and social health domains. Our Integrated Behavioral Health program ensures that all Upward Health providers, whether physical or behavioral health in nature, recognize and ensure the treatment of behavioral health conditions.
We know patients often present to physical health providers with clear and untreated behavioral health needs, but many of these same providers feel ill-equipped to intervene and treat. At Upward Health, our physical health and behavioral health clinicians work alongside one another to ensure this is not the patient experience, and additionally, to ensure these untreated conditions do not drive avoidable utilization.
Benjamin Lowenburg, MD
National Director for Behavioral Health
“It has been refreshing to experience true collaboration and integration at Upward Health,” said Benjamin Lowenburg, MD, Upward Health’s National Director for Behavioral Health. “I’m often sitting across from an Internal Medicine physician in our weekly interdisciplinary rounds – our sleeves are rolled up and we’re making sure there are no blind spots in the patient’s care and treatment planning.”
Beyond this anecdote, Dr. Lowenburg believes the best way to experience the impact of our Integrated Behavioral Health program is through a story.
April is a 65-year-old woman living in New York City. She suffered a stroke and the loss her sister within a 1-month period. By the time we met her, she had stopped treating her diabetes and had ignored referrals for physical therapy due to her significant depression. She was seen by an Upward Health family medicine provider who identified depression as the root cause of her medical challenges. She was referred to an Upward Health behavioral health therapist to begin to treat her depression.
With weekly therapy sessions with an Upward Health behavioral health provider, April was able to begin to address her grief and depression. Alongside this, April was referred for physical therapy to enable more complete recovery from her stroke. Her Upward Health family medicine provider also spoke directly with her previous primary care provider and prescriber, and prescribed insulin for her diabetes. The Upward Health provider ordered a glucose monitor for April so she and the Upward Health team can keep a close eye on her diabetes. Both Upward Health providers and the supporting care team are working together to advance April’s progress.
About a month into her work with us, April expressed feeling a renewed sense of interest in her life. She shared that physical therapy has greatly improved her mobility, and her daily attention to her diabetes helped her recognize that she has control over her health. She reports increased energy and improved mood. She also shared a better understanding for how her depression impacts her medical needs.
*April’s name and several other identifying details have been changed to protect her identity.
Unfortunately, many patients like April remain untreated for their behavioral health conditions, thereby exacerbating their physical health conditions. Many patients deal with fragmentation due to uncoordinated providers, resulting in conflicting treatment plans. With physical and behavioral health provider embedded right on the same treatment teams at Upward Health, barriers to care are promptly identified and treated by the right member of the team. We are proud to have many success stories like April’s; our Integrated Behavioral Health model meets the needs of marginalized patients around the country.
About Upward Health
Upward Health is an in-home multidisciplinary medical group that partners with health plans and other risk-bearing entities to address the needs of high- and emerging-risk patients. Using a unique, in-home, whole-person care approach to meeting a patient’s needs, Upward Health delivers and coordinates care that improves outcomes and the quality of life for every patient it serves. It has a Net Promoter Score of 86, among the highest in the healthcare industry, and ranks No. 7 on the 2023 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in the nation.
Press Contact: Colleen Wham, CWham@UpwardHealth.com