Behavioral Health Consultant - Fox Chapel - Full Time

Essential Responsibilities

• Acts as a core care team member to develop specific clinical pathways or best practice programs for targeted patient groups
• Participates in practice staff meetings and trainings
• Provides education and support on a variety of topics from behavioral health and substance abuse background, training, and expertise to multidisciplinary team members during the course of treatment planning for patients
• Participates in daily huddles, listening for behavioral health, substance abuse, and psychosocial needs
• Provides services to all enrollees (not just those with diagnosable mental disorders)
• Participates in system-wide BHC learning collaborative
• Effective Communicator and Change Agent
• Promotes ongoing change efforts in the practice and within the AHN health system around mental health and substance abuse disorders
• Documents in the same medical record as the rest of the team in a place that is easily visible by providers and other team members
• Engages patients via telephone as well as in person

Clinical Interventions

• Mets patients and providers where they are, usually the same day a patient presents in clinic providing immediate support to include assessment, intervention and referrals to higher levels of care for mental health and addiction needs when required
• Sometimes sees patients immediately after other team members (often in exam room or nearby consult room)
• Encourages patient participation in the overall treatment plan
• Treats patients with short term interventions based on “treat to target” approach using solution focused approaches, CBT, Motivational Interviewing and other short term counseling interventions
• Coordinates with patient family members and other support systems (with patient permission)
• Provides brief follow up, including relapse prevention education
• Helps patient in crisis get urgent mental health and substance abuse needs met
• Triage and refer patients to specialty mental health and substance abuse services when appropriate (i.e. Childhood trauma, IOP, inpatient hospitalization, PTSD, psychiatry, etc.)

Advocacy, Outreach, Community Linkages, and Coaching

• Advocates for patients who are perceived as difficult to work with or “non-compliant”
• Reaches out to patients who are not engaging (usually via phone) to re-engage them in their care
• Encourages patient to become an active participant in their own care and treatment
• Connects patient to a variety of resources in the community related to social determinants of health