The escalating crisis of teen mental health in the United States, with over 40% of high school students reporting feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2021, underscores the pressing need for effective solutions. In an interview with Behavioral Health Business, Embark Behavioral Health CEO Alex Stavros delves into the challenges surrounding the surge in demand for behavioral health services among adolescents and the strategies employed by his organization to confront these issues.
Embark Behavioral Health specializes in providing youth-focused behavioral health services, including day programs, short-term residential care, outpatient behavioral health, and long-term residential care.
During the interview, Stavros acknowledged the multifaceted barriers faced by providers in addressing the youth mental health crisis. He highlighted the challenges of awareness and stigma, emphasizing the difficulty in recognizing and understanding issues like anxiety disorders in children due to a lack of awareness. Additionally, the dual stigma faced by children and their parents contributes to the complexity of addressing mental health concerns.
One significant hurdle, according to Stavros, is the scarcity of providers and the associated difficulties in accessing mental health treatments, particularly those covered by insurance. The search for psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists often leads to long waitlists, making it challenging to provide timely care, especially for intensive outpatient programs, therapeutic day treatment programs, or residential treatment programs.
Addressing these challenges, Stavros emphasized the importance of capacity expansion in healthcare systems to meet the growing demand. He outlined the necessity of creating a continuum of healthcare services to intervene at the lowest level of care possible, ensuring accessibility based on geographic and financial factors. Stavros expressed the need for programs that are both geographically accessible and financially feasible, aiming to be in-network with payers to provide quality care.
Discussing trends that payers are prioritizing, Stavros highlighted the emphasis on quick access and the eventual transition to value-based care. While acknowledging the current challenges in implementing value-based care, he underscored the importance of fostering trust between payers and providers to streamline decision-making processes.
When asked about expansion strategies, Stavros revealed that Embark primarily focuses on de novo growth, creating new programs from scratch. He attributed this approach to its ability to cultivate a common organizational culture, emphasizing the importance of maintaining quality over rapid growth. Stavros acknowledged the potential for acquisitions to expedite growth but underscored the significance of preserving a unified culture across the organization to ensure stability and quality.
