Financing Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Care Within Physical Health: A Look to the Future

After sharing several case examples of health care for patients who have mental health/substance use disorders (MH/SUDs) in the current health care environment, this article describes the advantages that would occur if assessment and treatment of MH/SUDs became a clinical, administrative, and financial part of physical health with common provider networks, the ability to combine service locations (integrated clinics and inpatient units), similar coding and billing procedures, and a single funding pool. Because transition to such a system is complicated, the article then describes several process changes that would be required for integrated service delivery to take place.