The future of behavioral health care may look more community-based, according to Van Bramer.
Sweetser has a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) as part of its services. Its offerings include outpatient mental health services and substance use screening, a mobile crisis-response team, case management and peer-support services.
CCBHCs have garnered national attention after the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) allocated $2.16 billion to mental health initiatives and to expand CCBHCs nationwide.
“We want people to be able to stay in the community. We want them to have some symptom relief,” Van Bramer said.
Part of this is helping patients find roles in their community, whether that be a job or volunteer opportunity.
Over Van Bramer’s 30 years in the industry, she said that care has evolved to emphasize value now.
“It’s more about values than volume now. We used to always report on how many people were coming to us,” she said.”I think now, we really want to know that what we’re doing makes a difference.”