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Improving primary care by transforming, optimizing, and promoting quality integrated behavioral healthcare.
The Primary Care Behavioral Health Model
The Primary Care Behavioral Health (PCBH) model is a team-based primary care approach to managing behavioral health problems and biopsychosocially-influenced health conditions. The model’s main goal is to enhance the primary care team’s ability to manage and treat such problems/conditions, with resulting improvements in primary care services for the entire clinic population. The model incorporates into the primary care team a behavioral health consultant (BHC), sometimes referred to as a behavioral health clinician, to extend and support the primary care provider (PCP) and team. The BHC works as a generalist and an educator who provides high volume services that are accessible, team-based, and a routine part of primary care.
Behavioral Health Consultant/Clinician’s Role
Features of the Behavioral Health Consultant’s role can be summarized using the acronym GATHER: Generalist, Accessible, Team-based, High volume, Educator, and Routine.

Generalist
BHC assists in the care of patients of any age and with any health condition influenced by behavior.

Accessible
BHC strives for on-demand accessibility for patients and care team.

Team-based
BHC shares clinic space/resources and assists the team in various ways.

High Volume
BHC aims for high patient volume to support population health management.

Educator
BHC teaches behavior change and resilience strategies to the team.
