Poor mental health denies millions of Americans their chance to lead healthy and productive lives. Inadequately treated mental disorders are also an enormous driver of cost in our health care system as patients with a mental health diagnosis have nearly triple the average physical health care costs of enrollees those without.
Outcomes of mental health care provided in real world settings lag far behind the outcomes achieved in large trials of evidence-based treatments. One reason behind these poor outcomes in mental health care is that behavioral health providers severely lack the resources and tools to measure outcomes and determine whether patients are responding to treatment.
The Kennedy Forum is working to advance the quality of mental health care by promoting the adoption of evidence-based measures by all behavioral health and primary care providers. Measurement based care optimizes the accuracy and efficiency of symptom assessment, improves the detection of non-response (prompting revisions to the treatment plan), and maximizes the likelihood that patients receive the most effective treatment.
Why It Matters
- Inadequately treated mental health disorders account for 27% of all disability in the United States.
- Depression is the second leading cause of disability, accounting for over three times that of diabetes, over four times that of cancer, and over five times that of ischemic heart disease
