Kaiser Permanente’s Commitment to Behavioral Health Care

According to the National Association of Mental Illness, one in four people at some point in their life suffer from some kind of mental health disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, dementia, schizophrenia, and anxiety. Getting people to feel comfortable talking about their mental health with their care providers is a major goal at Kaiser Permanente.

Kaiser Permanente's integrated health care delivery system offers a powerful example of how mind and spirit can be healed and nurtured along with the body to achieve total health.

As with other medical conditions, prevention and early detection of symptoms are ideal in mental health treatment. Kaiser Permanente care providers – not just mental health providers – use a standardized tool to screen for and identify conditions like depression as early as possible. When symptoms are identified, primary care physicians remain alert and look for mental health disorders so they may arrange prompt therapy either in primary care or in behavioral health.

Therapists and psychiatrists treat a wide range of symptoms — such as feeling excessively sad, problems concentrating, extreme mood changes, changes in sleep habits, and abuse of alcohol or drugs. Care plans include counseling, medication evaluations, and medication management.

“To make mental health care accessible as possible, we provide options that respond to our members’ preferences and clinical needs,” explains John Bigley, MD, Area Medical Director, Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park. “This includes investigating new ways to use technology, such as telemedicine (e.g. video visits) as an option to deliver mental health care when appropriate, adding to access already available in person, by phone, online, and through secure emails with care providers.”

Care providers work together in an integrated manner to support patients and ensure that they receive comprehensive care with respect, compassion, and empathy. The effectiveness of this care model is evident in the fact that Kaiser Permanente's Northern and Southern California ratings for behavioral and mental health care are among the highest in the state, according to the California Office of the Patient Advocate's 2015 – 2016 report card.

Kaiser Permanente is actively working to meet the challenges that everyone in the mental health treatment community is facing – from managing shortages of mental health professionals to combatting the stigma that persists around mental health, to measuring outcomes of mental health treatment.

As part of Kaiser Permanente’s mission to continuously improve care, a multidisciplinary leadership team has been established that brings together the best available clinical evidence and takes advantage of all support resources available for its patients. This initiative will create the next generation of high-performing primary care teams to address patients' medical and mental health conditions, and ensure that members have access to the behavioral health care they need, when and where they need it.

About Kaiser Permanente Southern California

Kaiser Permanente is committed to helping shape the future of health care. We are recognized as one of America's leading health care providers and not-for-profit health plans. Founded in 1945, our mission is to provide high-quality, affordable health care services to improve the health of our members and the communities we serve. We currently serve more than 4 million members in Southern California. Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park serves nearly 253,000 members in the San Gabriel Valley through a network of more than 3,500 employees and 512 physicians. Facilities are located in Baldwin Park, City of Industry, Diamond Bar, Montebello, San Dimas, and West Covina. Care for members and patients is focused on their total health and guided by their personal physicians, specialists, and team of caregivers. For more information, follow us on twitter: @KPBaldwinPark or visit kp.org/baldwinpark.