Best Practice

The support of our recovery coaches is more valuable than ever right now, as COVID-19 is keeping people inside and physically separated from their support groups, loved ones, and others they normally reach out to for help. If your patients are in recovery or looking to get started, consider pointing them towards our peer recovery coaches.

Every day, you and your patients hear the updates of the COVID-19 pandemic. The statistics are overwhelming to us adults, but children are especially feeling anxious. May 9 was National Children’s Mental Health Awareness Day, and this year it’s more important than ever to ensure the children in one’s life are doing well. Your patients shouldn’t be afraid to engage and encourage their children to have conversations around COVID-19. Here are some tips for your patients to remember when discussing COVID-19 with their children.

The COVID-19 pandemic is unlike anything the global community has faced before.  Your patients and your colleagues are likely struggling with feelings of fear and anxiety — and you may be too.  The World Health Organization (WHO) has some guidelines to help. 

Today's post is from our broker blog, AllWays Insider. We're sharing their timely information on what seasonal affective disorder is and how employers can support their employees through it.

Monday, January 20 was "Blue Monday," known as the gloomiest day of the year thanks to post-Christmas blues, unpaid credit card bills, and most of all, dark, cold weather. While there is the occasional exception (like Boston’s recent record-breaking 74-degree day), the winter months in the Northern Hemisphere are typically full of cold weather, short days, and little sunlight. These three factors can contribute to sadness, decreased energy, and stress, and even lead to a form of depression known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Quality assurance and HEDIS^®

AllWays Health Partners’ behavioral health partner Optum provides a quality assurance (QA) toolkit for primary care providers (PCPs). This toolkit was designed to explain the substance use disorders and depression measures of HEDIS® to PCPs and give recommendations for meeting these measures. HEDIS stands for Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, describing a set of performance measures for both behavioral and physical health conditions. The intent is for purchasers and consumers to use HEDIS to compare and evaluate health plans easily.  Not only that, HEDIS sets a standard for the quality of care that patients should be receiving. The National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) uses HEDIS to evaluate PCPs, health plans, and Managed Behavioral Healthcare Organizations.