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Community Success Story - Community Service Group
Implementing Telepsychiatry Services with High Customer Satisfaction
by Bruce Cohen, Aimee Tsikitas, Mary Chancellor, Susan Blue, Brian Levin, Idee Brown, MD…
Introduction
Access to psychiatric services is a challenge in rural settings, often resulting in the populations being underserved for much needed services. Telepsychiatry offers an exciting opportunity to address this challenge and extend psychiatric services to those most in need. Community Services Group (CSG) recently partnered with the Pennsylvania's Office of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (OMHSAS), Lycoming/Clinton County MH/MR, Community Behavioral Health Network of PA (CBHNP) and InSight Telepsychiatry, LLC, a CFG Health Network company, to successfully bring telepsychiatry services to Lycoming County, an area in north central Pennsylvania with limited access to psychiatric care.
Background
CSG, founded in 1972, is a Pennsylvania provider of quality, community-based mental health and intellectual and development disability services, with locations throughout central and northeastern Pennsylvania. CSG began providing services in Lycoming and Clinton counties in 1985. These counties are predominantly rural and historically there has been a shortage of psychiatrists in the region. Prior to implementing telepsychiatry, CSG had one staff psychiatrist serving adults 17 years of age and older. Furthering the need for a solution, CSG had been unsuccessful in recruiting additional psychiatrists to the area.
In order to better serve the needs of children and adults in Lycoming and Clinton counties, CSG sought to imbed telepsychiatry in its outpatient practice, All Seasons Therapy Center, in Williamsport, PA. As defined by OMHSAS, telepsychiatry services are "a psychiatrist using real-time, two-way interactive audio-video transmission.”
CSG began this initiative by partnering with key stakeholders in the area. Planning meetings were held with representatives from the Medicaid behavioral health managed care organization (CBHNP), Health Choices, and Lycoming/Clinton Counties Office of Mental Health/Mental Retardation and Insight Telepsychiatry to develop a high quality service that met the needs of all the stakeholders to bring telepsychiatry to Lycoming and Clinton counties. The resulting Service Description was submitted and approved by OMHSAS. Insight Telepsychiatry then assigned a psychiatrist(s) properly enrolled in the PA Medical Assistance Program to provide services to adults and children through CSG’s All Seasons Therapy Center in Williamsport.
In June 2010, CSG began offering telepsychiatry at All Seasons. The program includes a telepsychiatrist who sees children and adults with a variety of mental health concerns. The adult or child is physically located in Williamsport PA and interacts by video conferencing technology with a psychiatrist in Philadelphia. Clinical staff located in Williamsport remain with the individual in service for the first telepsychiatry session and then upon request by either the individual or the psychiatrist. Telepsychiatry sessions may also include collaboration with family members, case managers and other service providers, particularly staff from Behavioral Health Rehabilitation Services and Family Based Mental Health programs, as appropriate.
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