Tens of millions of American adults struggle with mental illness, which has driven up the need for high-quality behavioral health services. Employers are expanding mental health benefits, and health systems are actively searching for partners that can improve access to care. On paper, America should be in the golden age for behavioral health organizations.

In reality, many companies in this space face a frustrating reality. They are winning contracts but fail to generate the patient volume they expected. Capacity and reimbursement are parts of the equation, but adoption is perhaps the biggest barrier. 

A health system may add a behavioral health provider to its network. An employer may offer access to a mental health platform. But if referring providers do not consistently use the solution, referrals never make it into the pipeline at scale. For many organizations, the challenge comes down to whether they live inside the EHR or not.

Winning the Contract Is Only the Beginning 

Virtual behavioral health and counseling providers have demonstrated that there is a strong demand for psychiatric and behavioral health services. Health systems, employers, and payers recognize the need for expanded access. However, securing a contract does not guarantee utilization. 

Most referral decisions happen during a clinical encounter. A physician identifies a patient who could benefit from behavioral health services and must decide where to send the patient. If your process requires the provider to leave the EHR, you are introducing friction and decreasing the odds of winning the referral.

When providers have to open a separate portal or tool, referral volume decreases drastically. Even when providers believe in the clinical model, extra steps create friction. Provider adoption failure is one of the biggest barriers to referral enablement. The need exists, but care access remains low due to the process itself.

The Referral Window Is Already Small, So Don’t Slam It Shut 

Behavioral health referrals are more vulnerable to delays than other types of healthcare specialties. When a patient is facing a physical ailment that may require surgery or a chronic health condition that demands ongoing management, they are more likely to overcome friction due to a feeling of necessity.

The success of behavioral health referrals often depends on a patient’s immediate willingness to seek help. A patient who agrees to treatment during today’s appointment may not feel that same sense of urgency tomorrow, especially if you ask them to jump through a bunch of hoops just to get an appointment. 

If you want to improve care access, it starts with health tech adoption and EHR-embedded workflows. Those solutions allow providers to handle the majority of the heavy lifting during the referral process without placing a huge burden on patients. 

Behavioral Health EHR Integration Drives Real Utilization 

Healthcare organizations have spent decades optimizing provider efficiency. Every click matters, and every distraction can hurt the patient experience. Solutions built around EHR-embedded workflows consistently outperform solutions that require providers to operate in a separate tab or portal. 

Behavioral health EHR integration represents a huge step forward for your organization and the patients you serve. When providers can complete referrals inside the EHR:

• Providers spend less time logging into portals and opening apps
• Referral completion rates increase
• Patients connect with services faster
• Health systems gain better visibility into referral outcomes
• Behavioral health organizations receive more consistent patient volume

You can adopt the best behavioral health platform on the market and still face adoption issues if it lives outside of your EHR. A good platform will fit naturally into your existing workflows and generate better real-world results because adoption is higher. 

Lean Into Referral Enablement With Arrowhealth 

If you want to capitalize on the strong contracts that you’ve been winning, referral enablement through an EHR-embedded solution is the answer. Arrowhealth delivers a user-friendly and powerful tool that makes referrals easier, more efficient, and less time-consuming.

With Arrowhealth, your providers can stay within the EHR environment that they know while effortlessly making referrals with a few clicks. Book a demo of Arrowhealth to learn more.