The issues were familiar:  Mental health challenges in youth on the rise, a limited number of specialists, and a primary care community working to fill the gap.

In 2003, Massachusetts’ youth mental health challenges were not unlike those of most states.  But its innovative response — the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project (MCPAP) — has produced one of the most successful youth mental health care models in the country.  A child behavioral health consultation  program, MCPAP has cost-efficiently increased patient access, reduced over-reliance on psychotropic drug prescriptions, met provider demands for greater specialist consultation and referral, and improved patient satisfaction.

MCPAP has also played a significant role in the implementation of requirements stemming from Rosie D v Patrick, a class action lawsuit which required providers to use a standardized mental health screening tool at all Medicaid well-child visits.

Join John Straus, MD, Vice President for Medical Affairs at the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership and Barry Sarvet, MD, Chief,  Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Vice Chair, Department of Psychiatry at Baystate Medical Center and statewide co-medical director for MCPAP for a discussion and Q&A on how building and sustaining a partnership between primary care and mental health clinicians can help transform youth mental health care.  Their discussion will feature an overview of the MCPAP program and its clinical impact and describe the program’s role in supporting providers following the Rosie D decision.

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Speaker Bios

John H. Straus, MD
Vice President, Medical Affairs
Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership

John Straus is vice president for Medical Affairs at the Massachusetts Behavioral Health Partnership (MBHP), the company contracted with the Massachusetts Medicaid program to manage behavioral health and primary care services.  He has lead the design and implementation of a statewide child psychiatry access and consultation project known as the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project (MCPAP).  MCPAP has become the model for similar programs in other states, including six now operational.  Dr. Straus has worked for over 22 years in managed care, including 11 years at MBHP.  While at MBHP, Dr. Straus has implemented a P4P program for the inpatient psychiatry units, stressed the integration of physical and mental heathcare, refocused utilization management to emphasize system improvement over managing one case or provider at a time, and increased management by data.

Prior to working at MBHP, Dr. Straus was medical director of the Fallon Community Health Plan.  Dr. Straus has a strong interest in quality management and is a current member of the HEDIS Expert Policy Panel, on which he has been a member since its inception.  While working on a Massachusetts statewide project that was a precursor to HEDIS, Dr. Straus developed the method of health plan measurement now widely known as the “hybrid method.”

He is a pediatrician, having had a primary care practice for 22 years.  Dr. Straus did his pediatric training at Strong Memorial Hospital at the University of Rochester and was a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar at Johns Hopkins Medical School.

Barry Sarvet, MD
Chief, Child and Adolescent Psychiatry
Vice Chair, Department of Psychiatry
Baystate Medical Center

Dr. Barry Sarvet is the Chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Vice Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at the Baystate Medical Center, and Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Tufts University Medical School.

Dr. Sarvet helped to design the nationally recognized Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project (MCPAP), an innovative statewide program assisting primary care physicians in responding to children’s mental health problems in the primary care setting.  He has served as the statewide co-medical director for the program since its inception.  Dr. Sarvet has also championed the development of a variety of evidence-based psychotherapy practices for children within outpatient programs at Baystate and has worked to disseminate these treatments within the community.  Over the past decade, Dr. Sarvet has contributed numerous presentations at scientific meetings and publications regarding his special interests in the integration of mental health with primary care and strategies for improving access to mental health services for children.  He has also provided consultations for healthcare institutions throughout the United States regarding the development of collaborative systems for mental health delivery.  Dr. Sarvet is the principal author of “Improving Access to Mental Health Care for Children: The Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Project” published in Pediatrics in December 2010.  This article is the first longitudinal study that examines data from a statewide behavioral health consultation program.

A recognized advocate in the community, Dr. Sarvet currently serves as president of the Western Massachusetts Chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.  Active in advocacy and mental health policy development at both the state and national levels, he was recently appointed by the Commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health to chair a committee on the promotion of best practices in children’s mental health within the state’s current Children’s Behavioral Health Initiative.

Dr. Sarvet received his bachelor and doctor of medicine degrees from the Honors Program in Medical Education at Northwestern University, graduating as a member of the Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Medical Society.  He did his internship at Norwalk Hospital, where he was selected as Intern of the Year, and he completed his general psychiatry residency and fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Yale.